


Snake Eyes

by ChroniclesOfAtoa (silentplanetgirl)



Series: Chronicles of Atoa: Scales, Feathers and Seven Swords [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Elves, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Half-Elves, Halflings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Orcs, Slash, Slow Burn, Tabaxi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2020-10-24 09:56:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentplanetgirl/pseuds/ChroniclesOfAtoa
Summary: This is an epic fantasy tale that takes place in my DnD setting, the Elven Republic of Atoa. It tells the story of a young woman fleeing from an underground city that ISN'T a ripoff of City of Ember. All the classic fantasy races appear in this story, but most of them have different names.Avarial Elves are known as Caelian ElvesDwarves are known as Kaváli (This is both singular and plural)Halflings are known as DealuriansOrcs are known as Mochvár (Plural: Mochvára)Yuan-Ti are known as OphionitesHumans, Half-elves, Tabaxi, and Dragonborn don't get cool names, but THEY ARE HERE AND WE LOVE THEM!This story is my baby. It has all the cool plot stuff: romance, tragedy, angst, self-indulgent smut, hurt/comfort, and SO MUCH GAY STUFF! :D Hope you all enjoy.PS Since all my beta readers have asked. No, there will be no furry shit in this story. Sorrynotsorry.





	1. Prologue

At the beginning of time, before the Great Serpent revealed himself to us, our ancestors lived and toiled on the continent of Atoa. We ate and drank as other meatlings did, unaware of our potential or purpose. But the best and cleverest among us heard whispers from the Great Serpent. Those who had heard his message rallied the people, urging them to enter the forest. The weak stopped up their ears out of fear of the Great Serpent’s power, and the tribe’s hunters entered the forest alone.  
When they came to face the serpent, he revealed to them the secret truth of the universe.  
_There is a howl that rings throughout the Abyssal and Ethereal Plane___  
_You children of the material world have forgotten your place___  
_Your seeds were planted at the beginning of the world, watered by time, and harvested every season by death.___  
_And yet you toil and labor, wasting blood, sweat, and tears, trying your best to prolong your short lives, and prevent the fall of the scythe.___  
_I have come to this plane to tell you that today, the cure for this chronic ailment is within reach of your lips.___  
_I will give you understanding, courage, and clarity that will make you as gods___  
_So that you may become harvesters and farmers of food destined to feed your creators._  
This was the Great Serpent’s offer. The hunters who had entered into the forest took it eagerly. But like all of the good things of this earth, this secret was not cheap.  
When the hunters returned to the village, a young boy standing watch over the huts welcomed them and asked what the Great Serpent had said. They dragged him into the center of the town and cut the boy’s heart out of his chest. The Serpent grinned as the boy’s blood seeped into the soil. Soon, the earth surrounding the town was wet with the blood of the ignorant.  
Their skin, soft and permeable like that of a ripened plum, was shed and replaced with scales like those of their new Lord. Their noses sunk into their faces. Some of them exchanged their legs for tails, and others grew forked tongues.  
These blessed ones became His first acolytes. Their minds became one with his, and they left their poor settlement and went on to found the greatest empire that the Material Plane has ever seen.  
The empire ruled for thousands of years, but every action has an equal opposite reaction, and soon, enemies from the homeland of the winged Caelian Elves rose up against the servants of our Master. They drove us out of our cities, into the forest, where we are now free to worship our Lord. Some among us remain in cities held by the enemy, waiting for our Lord to rise to power again.  
It was in one of these cities that my father was born. His family had served the Great Serpent since the beginning of time and had been well rewarded for their loyalty. They named him Thoru, but the meatlings of the city called him Silvertongue, for his quick wit and pretty words.  
When he was 19, his family returned to the great city of Krotalonia, so that they might know how he was destined to serve the Great Serpent.  
The High Priests predicted that my father would strike a blow against the Caelians that would lead to the resurrection of the empire. He would approach our enemies as an ambassador of peace. All further instructions would come from the Serpent God himself.  
My father left the city the next day. He returned 10 years later with two spoils of war, a Caelian woman, and me. The Caelian woman, my mother, did not live very long. She was sacrificed on the altar of the Serpent God soon after she arrived. I was welcomed into my father’s house, where I have lived for 19 years in the city of Krotalonia.  
My Name is Enessa Quetzál, and this is my story.


	2. Enessa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get to meet our heroine :D, also evil Snek People™

_March 11, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa___  
Hours before any of the servants had gotten out of bed, Enessa was awakened by a burning at the edges of her wings. Slowly, gingerly, she stumbled over to the dresser that sat on the other side of her room.  
A jade cup of a dark, bitter-smelling substance sat before the mirror. Enessa downed it in one gulp. Immediately, the pain in her wing tips subsided, and the features of her room came into focus.  
It must’ve been early in the morning. The finely ground crystals in Enessa’s hourglass were still trickling into the lower bulb of the device. Before the burn in her wings had emerged, she had been soaring through a bright, blue expanse, held up by a wind stronger than any she’d ever felt before. The 19-year-old ran her fingers through her dark curly hair and quietly glanced at the mirror. A pair of golden, serpentine eyes stared back at her. She could just barely make out the contours of the golden and red scales that covered her nose. If she’d thought to turn on a light, she might have also seen the blue feathers on her brows and ears, and the large, iridescent wings that sprouted from her back.  
Enessa always felt a little bit distant from her own body after sipping the dark broth that she took to subdue the pain in her wing tips.  
“Being awoken in the middle of the night can’t have helped,” she muttered to herself.  
Perhaps she’d made an error when brewing the potion the night before, but this was unlikely. She’d been preparing the same draught for 10 years. Why would it be any less effective now?  
Enessa quickly lit the lamp that sat on her dresser and carried it over to the bookshelf next to her bed. She pulled out a thick tome on potion making and opened it up to a page that had been marked with a green ribbon.  
Draught of Ekhi  
Good for the management of unceasing or terminal pain.  
“I know that,” Enessa muttered to herself, scanning the rest of the paragraph. At the end of the page was a small note.  
Draught’s effectiveness may be diminished in cases of anxiety or nervousness.  
Ah, so that was it. Enessa wrinkled her nose and slammed the book shut. She couldn’t help but feel a little bit ashamed. It was true that she felt nervous, but acknowledging the feeling made her skin crawl. Anxiety in the face of battle was barely acceptable, but to feel fear in the face of one’s coming of age ceremony was disgraceful on a lower level altogether.  
Ophion smite me, Enessa thought to herself. Uhtlia, her father’s maid, might’ve claimed that the fear in her heart was merely a test of faith, imposed by the Serpent God. Enessa was skeptical. Ophion wasn’t like any other god. He was the god of the Ophionites, the greatest of the eleven races, and the chosen ones to whom the gifts of flawless logic, intelligence, long life, and magical prowess had been given by the Serpent God.  
Enessa gingerly sat back down on her bed and rolled over onto her stomach, her large wings covering her. Sleep eluded her for the next few hours, but she was able to feign it well enough when Uhtlia threw open the doors to the room.  
“Good Morning, ma’am,” the older woman called. “Your brother and your father’s wife are in the garden.”  
Enessa sat up, trying her best to look groggy. It wasn’t hard.  
“Tell Lady Takah I’ll be right down,” she answered, rubbing her eyes. Uhtlia bowed dutifully and exited the room, leaving her lamp behind her.  
Enessa rose from her bed a second time. If Uhtlia hadn’t thought to leave her lamp behind, the lighting of the room wouldn’t have changed very much. The city of Krotalonia was underground, and there was no sun. The air was always moist, warm, and fairly stagnant, both indoors and out. Brightly colored Fungi and Lichens covered the walls of the houses, most of which were made of jade, and the roads and stairways were illuminated by torchlight. Enessa had never been above ground before, but nevertheless, she felt as though she somehow knew what the sky was supposed to look like. She’d seen it, as though in a dream, and often wondered what it would be like to stand beneath it.  
Right now, however, her childish flights of fancy about the sky were being eclipsed by the task before her. She needed to get dressed. She picked out a brightly colored tunic and stola from her dresser. A large hole had been cut in the back to accommodate her wings. She briefly thought about sitting down and putting her hair up, but that would take too much time, so she decided to leave it down. Soon, she was headed downstairs. Her stepmother, the Lady Takah, would probably be eating in the courtyard with Otsu, her son. The unexplainable happiness that Enessa felt whenever a meeting with her younger brother was anticipated was significantly diminished by the prospect of seeing the Lady Takah.  
But the elaborately carved jade chair that the matron usually occupied in the courtyard was empty. At its feet sat a young boy. His nose was covered with the same scale pattern as Enessa’s, only in red, rather than red and gold. His green eyes flitted across the pages of the journal he was writing in. Enessa walked over and sat down beside him. He looked up with a small grin.  
“Good Morning, Ness,” he said, cheerfully.  
Enessa smiled in spite of herself. “Good Morning, Master Otzu. How’s the family history coming?”  
Otzu glanced briefly down at his journal. “I want to draw our house.”  
“The exterior?”  
“No, the layout.”  
Enessa raised an eyebrow. “For Aesthetic purposes?”  
“No, historical,” the boy replied, earnestly.  
Enessa sat down on the cool marble tiles of the courtyard. “State your arguments as to why this should be included in the record.”  
Otzu immediately closed the book, sat up, and puffed out his chest in a vain attempt to make himself seem more intimidating than he was.  
“I move to include an illustration of the layout of House Quetzál because if Ophion wills it so, the house will continue to stand for thousands of years after us. Our descendants will be curious as to how their forefathers and mothers oriented the house, in order to facilitate the movement of people, goods, and services in the most efficient manner possible. They will be pleased to see how their ancestors anticipated these questions with intellect granted by the grace of the Serpent God.”  
Enessa raised her hand with a flourish. “All in favor of this addition to the historical record, say aye.”  
“Aye,” Otzu piped up.  
Enessa smiled playfully. “You can’t vote on what to add to the historical record you wish to keep.”  
“But there’s no-one else here,” Otzu retorted.  
“Did you think I’d say no?”  
The boy glanced at the ground, a little shamefaced. “No,” he muttered.  
Enessa chuckled. “The ayes have it unanimously. The supplement shall be adopted.”  
“Can you help me draw it?”  
“Absolutely,” Enessa answered, as Otzu flipped the book back open.  
“Enessa?”  
The two siblings looked up from the book. Lady Takah had just entered the courtyard. Her hair was elaborately piled atop her head, and her earlobes were weighed down with jewelry of gold and jade. Enessa and Otzu immediately rose to their feet and bowed.  
“Good Morning, Lady Takah,” Enessa saluted.  
The matron didn’t respond immediately. “What were you doing with my son?” she asked cooly.  
Enessa glanced back at Otzu, who was rocking back and forth nervously. “Master Otzu and I were approving a supplement for the history he’s writing...of Father’s family.”  
The older woman sat in her chair and cast a chilly gaze towards her step-daughter. “Remind me why you two are embarking on this errand? I don’t believe it’s part of the curriculum planned for Master Otzu by his tutor.”  
Otzu glanced at Enessa apprehensively. Enessa barely flinched. “It isn’t. But—”  
“Then it’s a waste of time.”  
“Ma’am,” Enessa interjected, tightly folding her wings behind her. The Matron sat up in her seat. Otzu took a sharp breath inward.  
“May I state my argument on behalf of the project?”  
Lady Takah’s eyes narrowed. “Not at this moment. I didn’t come here to argue about this. I came because I wished to speak with you privately.” the matron paused. “Otzu, would you mind leaving us for a moment?”  
“No ma’am,” Otzu answered, bowing. “May Ophion keep you.” The young boy apologetically squeezed Enessa’s hand before darting back into the house. The two women were alone.  
“Well then, are you going to sit down?” Lady Takah asked.  
“Yes, ma’am,” Enessa answered, settling into another nearby seat. Uhtliah suddenly re-entered the courtyard carrying a tray of fruits and fungi. Enessa, who’d forgotten how hungry she was, fixed her eyes on the pomegranates that must’ve been brought in from aboveground that morning. Lady Takah picked up a bundle of grapes.  
“So, today you stand before the High Priest and his council, and hear what Lord Ophion desires from you.”  
Enessa nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”  
“And how is my stola?”  
Enessa glanced down at the billowy garment she was dressed in. It was a little bit big, but it was comfortable. “It’s fine,” she answered.  
Lady Takah narrowed her eyes. “Uhtliah ruined it when she cut that hole in the back, but your father insisted that no daughter of his should come of age without a proper dress.” The Matron paused. “He’s also the one who asked me to speak with you this morning.”  
Enessa’s wings bristled. She didn’t want to be angry at Lady Takah, but the matron seemed determined to test her step-daughters resolve to remain civil.  
“It’s very generous of you to oblige him,” Enessa responded. “I only hope that the father of whatever children I have is as eager to grant my requests.”  
The matron lazily traced the carvings on the arm of her seat. “If Lord Ophion wills such a thing.”  
Enessa smiled tensely. What a day this was turning out to be. Before she could think of a suitably passive-aggressive comeback, a new figure passed into the courtyard.  
“Enessa?”  
The two women rose to their feet. Enessa’s father, Thoru, stood in the archway of the house. He was tall and lanky, like Otzu, with dark skin, and green eyes. His hair had been dark once, but without the blue undertones that were present in Enessa’s tresses. Now, his head had been shaved, revealing the black scales that peppered the area around his temples.  
“Thoru,” Lady Takah called out. “I was just speaking to your daughter about her meeting with the High Council later this afternoon.”  
“Thank Ophion,” Thoru replied with a smile. “Enessa, you aren’t wearing your hair to the temple like that, are you?”  
“No, since I didn’t expect the High Council to make an appearance at breakfast, I decided to prioritize the procuring of sustenance over the styling of hair,” Enessa responded. Now that she wasn’t alone in the courtyard with Lady Takah, she could afford to let a bit of sarcasm slide into her voice. Thoru’s smile grew.  
“Why don’t you run upstairs now, and we’ll walk with you towards the temple once you’re ready.”  
Enessa’s heart sank. She would have much preferred to have a private conversation with her father but didn’t see any reason for arguing. She bowed and ran back into the house. Once she was upstairs, she began gathering her hair on top of her head in the style traditionally worn by grown women in Krotalonia. Two locks of hair were left to hang on either side of her part, framing her face, before being braided and secured with gold bands. The rest of her hair was braided and twisted into a bun. Up until today, she’d always worn her hair in a braid down her back. Other girls wore their hair completely loose, but Enessa had always been taught to keep her hair up so other citizens of Krotalonia could see her feathered ears.  
“Enessa, You aren’t just any other Ophionite child. You symbolize our race’s inevitable victory over the meatlings in the world above,” Thoru had explained to her. “My family has served the Lord Ophion for thousands of years since he called our meatling ancestors into the forest and blessed them with his power and knowledge. Your mother’s people resisted the call of the Serpent God and tried to vanquish us, but she was brought to him nonetheless. He took her blood, and gave you to me, as a living symbol of his might.” At this point in the story, Thoru would pause to glance at Enessa’s feathered ears and brows. “This is why the people of this city must always see your feathers, so that they might remember.”  
Enessa pressed her lips together at the memory and glanced back up at her reflection. Her feathered ears peaked out on either side of her head. When she re-entered the courtyard, every member of the household had gathered downstairs. Otzu, who was wearing a blue tunic, peered out from behind his mother. His face lit up when Enessa exited the house. Thoru and Takah were both wearing ceremonial robes. The servants of the house bowed as Enessa exited. Some shouted praises to Ophion. Enessa held her head high and began to walk with her family towards the temple.


	3. Child of Scales and Feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enessa is brought to the Krotalonian temple to learn her destiny.

_March 11, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa___  
The temple of the city of Krotalonia and the residence of the high priests and their council was a large pyramid that stood at the center of the city. Acolytes of the temple, most of them from meatling communities above ground, lived on the lowest level of the pyramid. At the next level was the main temple where the so-called “purebloods,” the original descendants of the first followers of the god Ophion, gathered to perform rituals. Virtually all the members of Thoru’s household, Takah, Otzu, and the servants, were purebloods. But not even Thoru’s immense wealth could place them above the occupants of the next level of the temple, the Deacons. These were men and women who devoted their lives to understanding the will of the Serpent God. Their heads were completely snake-like, but their bodies still resembled those of the Krotalon’s meatling ancestors. These clerics took the revelations received by the occupants of the next level of the pyramid and made them known to the whole city. The occupants of the next level, the Priests, had taken on various aspects of the perfect form of the Serpent God. They were divided into three different orders, the Mind-Whisperers, the Nightmare-Speakers, and the Bloodletters. The Mind-Whisperers were men who had offered their thoughts, their mental faculties, and their powers of reason to the Serpent God. Their bodies were similar to those of the Deacons but were entirely covered in scales. The Nightmare-Speakers were women who extracted the fears and anxieties of those whose bodies had been chosen to feed the Serpent God. Many of these sacrificial victims were meatlings, some of whom were unwilling to open their eyes to see the Serpent God’s vision. The women retained the heads and upper-torsos of those who had not accepted the revelations of Ophion, but their lower bodies were serpentine, and they had no legs.  
The third priestly order, the Bloodletters, were responsible for the physical preparation of offerings to Ophion. They had the head, legs, and torsos of a man, but tendrils, shaped like the tails of many serpents, hung from their shoulders in place of arms. The High Council itself was composed of the leaders of each order and was lead by the Serpent God’s most blessed follower, the Godling Krotalo himself, for whom the city was named.  
Enessa and her family walked up past the levels of the temple reserved for acolytes. Once they had reached the second level of the temple, Thoru, Takah, Otzu, and a crowd of purebloods that had followed the family through the city, would stay behind. Enessa was privately glad that she would be allowed to go forward alone. She was used to receiving an unusual amount of attention from other citizens of Krotalonia, but she couldn’t remember being surrounded by a crowd this big. Coming-of-age ceremonies usually had a smaller audience, consisting of friends, relatives, and a few nosy elders.  
_You aren’t just any other child,_ Enessa could hear her father’s words echo through her head. Feeling a little irritated, she continued walking up the stairs of the temple.__  
Soon she had passed the level of the temple where the deacons resided and arrived at the second to last level of the temple: the residence of the High Priests. The gathering hall in the center of the chamber was deserted. Enessa walked out to the middle of the empty room, finally letting the folds of Lady Takah’s stola fall to the floor. The climb had been exhausting. She was just beginning to wish that she had a chair when she heard a noise from across the room.  
“Hail!”  
Enessa turned quickly to see three figures emerge from a doorway across the room. The three High Priests stood before her. The leader of the nightmare-speakers, an older looking woman dressed in ceremonial robes that only partially concealed her serpentine lower body, was the first to break the silence.  
“Child of Scales and Feathers, ripped from the womb of the feathered meatlings, do you fear us?” the woman asked. Her voice was low, melodious, and strangely calming. Enessa immediately bowed.  
“No, Lady, I am merely in awe of the blessings given to you by the great Ophion. Blessed be his name.”  
The Mind-Whisperer’s lip curled slightly. “She possesses the silver tongue of her father. Think you so, Thutla?”  
The Nightmare-Speaker smiled. “Undoubtedly, Sethu. I wonder if she remembers us. Do you remember her mother, Tashihsall?”  
The Bloodletter nodded. “Vividly. She had been walking through the upper world for days when she came here. Thoru was able to keep her from flying away with powers given to him by the grace of Ophion. It was strange. Cut off as she was from the void where her accursed people fly, all she did was ask about you.”  
Enessa felt her wings twitch instinctively. A million questions rose to the surface of her thoughts. She had never heard this part of her mother’s story. When purebloods were sacrificed to the Serpent God, they usually went fearlessly, without looking back. Only unenlightened meatlings shrank back in the face of Ophion. Enessa’s mother had come to the city willingly, surely she’d known that sacrifice was a possibility. In the face of a destiny that she had chosen, why look back and ask about those she was leaving behind?  
Shake it off, a voice in her head said. Don’t think about it. This changes nothing. You’re going to be different, there are hundreds of other ways for you to serve Ophion. Focus on what’s happening now, it’ll be over soon.  
Enessa took a breath, folded her wings together tightly, and stood up a little straighter. “Praise Ophion,” she replied.  
Sethu, the Mind-Whisperer, smiled. “Indeed. So, Enessa Quetzál, I imagine you are curious about what fate the Great Serpent intends for you.”  
Enessa nodded. “I am, Lord.”  
_Then let us put your curiosity to rest._ A low hiss sounded from the passage that the High Priests had emerged from. Lord Krotalo had come.__  
The Godling was a 25 feet tall serpent, with six heads, and thin, strong arms. Enessa’s mouth fell open. She had always heard that the Godling chosen by Ophion to lead the city was impressive, but this was beyond her wildest expectations. She had to remember to force herself to her knees and bow her head.  
The Godling continued on.  
_Your father, Thoru, came to this city from the upper world twenty-five years ago to stand before me in the very spot where you now kneel. It was foretold to me by Ophion himself that a member of the House Quetzál would be sent to the abode of our most despised enemies to bring back two trophies. Thoru, son of Hastall, exceeded his family’s wildest expectations. Only I knew what he’d bring back. The fate of the first trophy was revealed immediately to me, her body would be used to sustain our creator, But the fate of the second,_ here all six of the Godling’s heads fixed their eyes on Enessa, _He has withheld until now. He exists outside of time, He is time. He alone knows when his food will be harvested, and how it will nourish him._____ Enessa could feel drops of sweat crawl slowly down her neck. Her wing-tips were beginning to tingle again. Perhaps she should have taken another dose of the draught before ascending to this level of the pyramid. This and other thoughts swirled in the back of her mind as the Godling raised it’s many heads again.  
_Enessa, daughter of Thoru. I come to you with news of your destiny.___ Enessa swallowed her apprehension and looked straight into the eyes of the godling. She didn’t know if she was establishing contact with all of his heads or only one of them, all she knew was that she couldn’t feel her knees, and her feathers were standing on end.  
The Godling reared its head. *You shall follow in the footsteps of your mother.*  
Now Enessa lifted herself up in earnest, thinking she had misheard or misunderstood.  
_Your body is to be offered to Ophion. Your blood and heart will sustain him. He has treasured his prize for nearly 20 years, now it will become one with him.___ No, the Godling had made himself perfectly understood. He was now slithering out of the room, leaving Enessa alone with the High Priests.  
“I—” Enessa heard a voice break the silence that grew in the Godling’s absence. She suddenly realized with horror that the voice was her own. The High Priests turned to her with bemused expressions.  
“Have you something to say, child?” Thutla, the nightmare-speaker said.  
Now I’ve done it, Enessa thought to herself. She had half a mind to continue singing the praises of the Godling and the High Priests, but something deep within wouldn’t allow it. This had to be a mistake.  
“Are—is this is Lord Ophion’s will for me?” Enessa stammered.  
Thutla’s lips curled into a small, dangerous smile. “Are you questioning the Godling’s words?”  
“N-no, I’m not questioning Lord Ophion—”  
“When you question the Godling, you question Lord Ophion,” Sethu, the mind-whisperer interjected.  
Enessa swallowed hard. “I m-merely ask for his reasoning if he wouldn’t mind revealing it to me. So that he might prepare me for my destiny.”  
“Part of her tongue must have come from her mother,” the Bloodletter answered. “Like the wings, perhaps we should rip it out.”  
Enessa’s heart froze. This made no sense. The Serpent God had won his people over with reason, why wouldn’t he do the same with her?  
Thutla smirked. “Child of Scales and Feathers, you’re dismissed. Tashihsall will escort you to the chamber where you’re to be marked, after this, you may return to your father’s house. You will go to meet Ophion in the morning.”  
Enessa swallowed her remaining questions and rose to her feet. “Thank you,” she murmured and turned to walk down the stairs.  
She could hear Tashihsall, the Bloodletter, walking behind her. She avoided his eyes. She knew what was about to happen. All citizens of Krotalonia were marked by temple priests when they came of age. The marks received by each citizen were determined by the role that had been chosen for them.  
As Enessa re-entered the level of the temple reserved for purebloods, she realized that the crowd of spectators had nearly doubled in size. Her father, Lady Takah, and Otzu stood at the front. She desperately wanted to say something, but she realized that the Bloodletter was standing behind her.  
“Get undressed. Don’t take off your underclothes,” the High Priest muttered.  
Enessa gave a slight nod and walked to the middle of the room. The next few hours passed in a blur. Enessa removed her stola, and sat down as the high priest and several other Bloodletters drew the marks of a sacrificial offering on her arms, shoulders, and legs. The pain barely registered. As the marks being made by the bloodletters came together, gasps and shouts of praise echoed through the chamber. The only two people who didn’t seem shocked were Lady Takah and Thoru. Lady Takah stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on a specific spot on the opposite wall of the room. Thoru smiled. He seemed completely satisfied with how everything was turning out. Otzu kept his eyes fixed on Enessa, his expression was neither proud, nor joyous, nor fearful. Enessa had never seen anything like it before. So why did looking at it make her feel as though a void had opened up in her stomach?  
It was probably nothing. Otzu had never been to a coming-of-age ceremony before. He’d been to sacrifices, but he had never seen where the offerings came from.  
Perhaps he’s just taking it all in, Enessa thought to herself. She tried to smile at the boy, a little weakly, before casting her eyes back down to the floor.  
Soon, it was over. Enessa stood up, and the crowd before her sunk to their knees.  
Tashihsall, the high priest remained behind as the Bloodletters left the chamber.  
“Enessa Quetzal, daughter of Thoru, Child of Scales and Feathers, Do you accept your destiny?”  
Enessa realized that now was her chance to make up for her interview in the upper chamber.  
“I accept it as Ophion wills it,” she answered. The Bloodletter looked at her long and hard before nodding and exiting the chamber.  
Enessa immediately picked her dress back up and slid it over the burning marks on her arms. The crowd parted reverently as she walked forward. She desperately wanted to run back to the house, but doing so would tell everyone about the heretical sense of terror that was now brewing within her heart. As she walked back to the house, the crowd finally dispersed. By the time she, Thoru, Lady Takah, and Otzu had reached the gates, only a few stragglers remained. Thoru thanked them, blessed them, and ushered the rest of the family through the gates. It was evening, and dinner was on the table.


	4. Watered by Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enessa processes the events of her day at the temple.

_March 11, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa___  
Enessa freely drank the Draught of Ekhi that Uhtlia set before her, and immediately requested another one. Uhtliah obliged.  
“Do you usually take that much?” Lady Takah asked.  
Enessa looked up from her plate, her feathers bristling. “No, but the marks are very painful.”  
“When you were a child, I dreamed of this. It must have been an omen from Ophion,” Thoru interjected, smiling.  
“Otzu, didn’t you want to ask Enessa about the Godling?” Lady Takah inquired.  
Otzu looked up from his plate. None of his food had been touched. “Um...I’m not feeling so good,” he answered.  
“You have until tomorrow,” Thoru reminded him.  
Otzu bit his lip and looked up at Enessa. “Ness, what was the Godling like?”  
Enessa paused. “Big,” she answered.  
There was an awkward pause. It suddenly occurred to Enessa that she hardly sounded like someone who’d had a divine encounter.  
“I mean...he was immense. He filled the whole room. He looks like the paintings we see of Lord Ophion, except he has six heads,” Enessa paused, “and arms. He has two arms.”  
“Why does he need arms?” Otzu asked. “Lord Ophion doesn’t have arms.”  
“If he didn’t have arms, he’d be Lord Ophion himself,” Thoru interjected.  
Otzu looked back down at his plate. Enessa felt something inside her snap. She stood up from the table. “May I go to my room? I’m very tired.”  
Thoru nodded. “You’ve had a blessed day. You may be excused.”  
“Thank you,” Enessa murmured, before immediately turning and leaving the dining room. She quickly made her way up the stairs, shut the doors of her room behind her, and threw off her stola as though it were on fire.  
I need to calm down, she thought to herself. I need to...I don’t know. Unsure of how to proceed, she mechanically pulled a softer tunic from her wardrobe, put it on, and flopped onto her bed, stretching out her wings. The marks on her arms, shoulders, and legs had stopped hurting. She quietly glanced over at the mirror.  
These won’t have healed properly by tomorrow, she thought to herself. I don’t understand why they put them on offerings just before they’re sacrificed. It’s such a waste.  
Suddenly, there was a small knock at the door. Enessa sat up in bed.  
“Come in?”  
The door opened, and Otzu poked his head into the room. Clutched in his hand was a cup of the Draught Enessa had requested.  
“Otzu, what’s—” Before Enessa could finish asking her question, Otzu had placed the cup on her dresser and rushed toward her, clasping his arms around her torso, and burying his face just below her sternum.  
Enessa’s heart leapt into her throat. On any other occasion, she would have done everything in her power to discourage this type of behavior. It was foolish, weak, unbecoming of any Ophionite child. And yet she couldn’t. Everything she felt, Otzu’s shaking shoulders, the impression of his face below her sternum, the desperate tightness of his grasp, felt precious and final. She felt herself returning the embrace. The two siblings sat on the bed together, illuminated by the light coming from the hall. Suddenly, a shadow fell across the room.  
“Otzu? What are you doing?”  
Otzu leapt away from Enessa as though he’d been burned. Lady Takah stood in the doorway, a look of stern judgment on her face.  
“Go to your room,” she said.  
“I—”  
Otzu had barely opened his mouth to object when Lady Takah interrupted. “Now. I’ll be in to say goodnight shortly. I want to speak to your sister.”  
Otzu stood up, giving Enessa’s hand a squeeze as he moved, and ran out of the room. Enessa’s heart sank.  
“May I come in?” Lady Takah asked.  
Enessa nodded. She knew what was coming. Lady Takah closed the door and, to Enessa’s surprise, walked toward the bed.  
“Can I sit?”  
“Um...I mean—yes, of course,” Enessa stammered. The Matron sat down in the space that only recently had been occupied by Otzu.  
“Has he done that before?” She asked.  
“No,” Enessa answered. “I promise, this was the only time.”  
“Good. The lesson will be a quick one then,” the older woman paused and glanced at the tattoos that now snaked up Enessa’s arms. “It’s so strange seeing someone marked as an offering in my own house again.”  
Enessa looked up. “Again?”  
Lady Takah nodded. “When I was a little younger than you, I had an older brother, Sumi,” the matron paused. “He was born two years before me. We were very close, much like you and Otzu. Then he was marked as an offering.”  
“Your family must have been honored,” Enessa replied, trying hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice.  
“My parents were, yes. But I was young, and full of foolishness. I was angry at Ophion because I thought he had taken something precious away from me.” Lady Takah’s eyes drifted towards the opposite wall of the room. “It wasn’t until he’d gone to meet his destiny that I realized the truth.”  
“The truth?”  
Lady Takah nodded. “We are cattle, watered by time, and harvested. In the end, all of us will become one with the darkness.”  
“But doesn’t he need us to serve him while we are alive?”  
Lady Takah’s expression darkened. “He doesn’t need anyone, Enessa. He is ravenous, and nothing will stop him from taking what is his. Be reasonable. Why do you think that he took your mother from her meatling family? He was trying to enlighten them.”  
“Enlighten them?”  
“Yes. What truly sets us apart from those above us is that we know our ultimate destiny. Ophion has taught us the foolishness of emotional attachment to those who are destined to be food. You, Sumi, your mother, you are the proof. You test the battlements Ophion has allowed us to build around our hearts to keep them safe, and to make us strong.”  
Enessa cast her eyes downward. She didn’t know how to answer.  
“I’m telling you this to reassure you, to strengthen your resolve. There isn’t anything you can do to prevent this. Do you understand?”  
Enessa nodded mechanically.  
“Good. I’ll see you in the morning.”  
“Thank you, ma’am,” Enessa responded, but Lady Takah was already making her way towards the door.


	5. Harvesters, Farmers and Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enessa gets an idea.

March 12, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa  
The rest of the night dragged on slowly. Enessa tried to sleep, but the words of Lady Takah weighed heavily on her mind. She knew that everything her stepmother had said was absolutely true. It was written in the message that Ophion had given to his first followers in the forest.  
  
*Your seeds were planted at the beginning of the world, watered by time, and harvested every season by death.*  
*And yet you toil and labor, wasting blood, sweat, and tears, trying your best to prolong your short lives, and prevent the fall of the scythe.*  
*I have come to this plane to tell you that today, the cure for this chronic ailment is within reach of your lips.*  
*I will give you understanding, courage, and clarity that will make you as gods,*  
*So that you may become harvesters and farmers of food destined to feed your creators.*  
"So, I’m not a harvester or a farmer. I am food," Enessa thought to herself bitterly. "Good for me."  
  
Suddenly, the last thing that Lady Takah had said to her floated to the surface of her consciousness.  
“There isn’t anything you can do to prevent this. Do you understand?”  
Enessa suddenly sat up in bed, an enticingly dangerous thought floating to the surface of her mind. Was there truly nothing she could do to prevent this? This sort of advice would make sense if it were given to a meatling sacrifice. No offering brought to the city from aboveground had ever escaped, but the descendants of those chosen by Lord Ophion, the Ophionite purebloods, entered and left the city all the time. They went to work in cities, villages, and royal courts above ground. They lived among other meatlings, away from the reach of the Godling and the High Priests, perhaps even away from the reach of Ophion himself.  
“Perhaps…” Enessa murmured, but then she stopped herself. This was ridiculous, no, it was heretical. What reason did she have to leave? She’d be no better than the meatlings who had stopped up their ears to Ophion’s message.  
“What truly sets us apart from those above us is that we know our ultimate destiny...In the end, all of us will be re-absorbed into the void.”  
But then, Enessa wasn’t denying the truth of Lady Takah’s words.  
“I just don’t care,” she heard herself say, “I don’t want to die tomorrow.”  
A hot, wet breeze blew through the bedroom, and the nagging voice of Lady Takah suddenly ceased.  
Enessa paused, and quickly glanced at her hourglass. It had been nearly 2 hours since she’d spoken to Lady Takah. Everyone in the house was asleep. It would be 7 hours before the servants woke up to prepare breakfast. Enessa immediately began budgeting out the time she would need to prepare for her departure.  
She’d need to pack several doses of the Draught of Ekhi, and perhaps some sort of weapon. Getting to the city gate would be easy enough, but passing through would be more complicated. She’d need to wear a hooded cape to cover up her ears and wings, and clothes that would be comfortable to travel in, but she’d also need identification.  
My grandmother’s passport, Enessa suddenly thought to herself. Her father and his parents had lived in a city aboveground for over a decade. The passports that they used to exit and enter the city were kept in Thoru’s study. Enessa had always been a good calligrapher, and she knew that forging the passports wouldn’t be terribly difficult. Brewing extra doses of the Draught of Ekhi would take about 20 minutes, finishing the fake passport would take about an hour. Packing would take another hour. If she began moving now, she could be headed towards the city gates in at least two and a half hours.  
Well, that settles it, she thought to herself. I should probably get moving before I change my mind.


	6. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...honestly the title of this chapter is a pretty good summation of what happens.

Enessa had been inside of her father’s study on multiple occasions, usually when she was studying Elven, Common or Abyssal with her tutor. The shelves, which were made of black marble and alabaster, were lined with heavy volumes, most of which had been brought to Krotalonia by Enessa’s grandparents.  
Old family documents were kept in an unlocked box made of mahogany. A snake eating its own tail had been carved into the lid and gilded with gold leaf. Finding the box was easy. The reflection of the light cantrip that Enessa cast on one of her father’s paperweights made the gold leaf shimmer.  
Enessa’s grandmother’s passport sat at the top of the box, slightly yellowed, but otherwise pristine. Enessa took the whole box, along with a quill, and a roll of parchment, and hurried back to her room.  
Imitating the sloping calligraphy that the passport was written in was easy, but another problem arose almost immediately. The stamp on the passport stating the owner’s occupation, stated that she was travelling as someone’s wife. If Enessa copied the stamp, there was a high chance that the pureblood agents at the gate would ask where her husband was.  
“Ophion smite me!” Enessa cursed to herself, rubbing her temples. Suddenly, something else in the box caught her eye. It was her grandfather’s passport, specifically the note written on it in vivid red ink.  
Ossasha Quetzál has been chosen by the Lord Ophion, and marked by the High Priests, as one of our Lord’s High Assassins.  
Scrawled across the bottom of the passport was a signature.  
Bloodletter Tashihsall, High Priest of the Temple of Ophion.  
Enessa’s heart leapt into her throat. Most of the border guards were young, inexperienced operatives, ambitious, but fearful of those in authority. Assassins already had a suitably dark reputation within the city. No-one knew who they were, or where they went. They operated both inside and outside of Krotalonia without much oversight.  
“Perfect,” Enessa murmured to herself. She quickly returned to her father’s office to get a pot of red ink, and set about copying the note onto her own “passport.” She had just covered the document with a sheet of blotting paper, when she noticed something else inside the box, hiding under another document. It was a large, ceremonial dagger, around the size of Enessa’s forearm. When she removed the weapon from it’s leather sheath, she noticed an inscription stamped into the blade.  
For Ossasha Quetzal, Servant of Ophion, Member of the Order of the Viper’s Fang  
Blood, Soil, Venom, Victory.  
Enessa pocketed the dagger. Members of the Order of the Viper’s Fang were so infamous for their brutality, that most Ophionites didn’t even dare to speak the order’s name. If any of the guards at the border gave her trouble after seeing her passport, the dagger could be used as an additional method of intimidation.  
Enessa returned to her room with the newly finished passport and the stolen dagger. Everything in her father’s study was as it had been. Enessa had even placed a silver letter opener under the papers in the box to make it look as though the dagger was still there.  
Soon, everything else was in place. The draught of Ekhi was bottled in a large wineskin that Enessa had found in the kitchen. Clothes, coins, and a book on potion-brewing, had been stuffed into a messenger bag that Thoru had used as a child, travelling to and from Krotalonia.  
Enessa’s heart leaped when she looked at her hourglass and realized that she still had more than 5 hours left to reach the city gates. She dressed quickly, putting on trousers, a tunic, a hooded cloak, and boots. She folded her wings as tightly as she could, and hoped against hope that the large, billowing cloak would effectively hide them. She had just exited the room with her things, when a sound from down the hall stopped her in her tracks. An unfamiliar noise was coming from Otzu’s room.  
Against her better judgement, Enessa quietly approached the door. It wasn’t until she was about a foot away that she realized that Otzu himself was making the noise. Loud, shuddering sobs echoed from behind the door. Enessa felt as though someone had kicked her in the stomach. She had never heard Otzu cry about anything before. She lingered for a moment outside of the door. She wanted to pray, but to whom could she pray? She’d abandoned the only god worth praying to. All she could manage, as she tried to suppress her own sobs, was a weak whisper.  
“Otzu, I’m sorry.”  
Enessa didn’t know why she was apologizing when she knew Otzu wouldn’t hear, but there wasn’t time to dwell on that now. She ran down the stairs, blinking back the tears that threatened to flow freely down her cheeks, and soon found herself in the middle of a deserted street. The next hour of walking passed in something of a blur, and soon voices echoed in the distance.  
The gates to the underground passage that lead aboveground were made of black marble, and guarded by a group of young, tired looking purebloods, all of whom looked incredibly overwhelmed. A raiding party had just come back underground, and a line of tired, confused, angry and frightened looking meatlings who had been snatched from the outskirts of villages stood in a line, surrounded by members of the raiding party. As Enessa approached the gates, several of the meatlings desperately tried to catch her eye.  
“Halt! Who’re you?” a young frazzled looking guard inserted himself between Enessa and the group of captives.  
Enessa hid her eyes and lowered her voice. “Ophion keep you, brother. I seek to venture above ground.” She quickly removed the passport from her pocket and handed it to the guard.  
The guard sneered, but his face fell as he glanced at the red writing on the document.  
“Hey, Zaksai! What’re you doing?”  
An older looking guard approached his compatriot. Enessa felt her heart rising into her throat. The first guard, Zaksai, looked up from the paper with wide eyes. His face was completely ashen.  
“Shokatha, I’m just granting this young lady passage.”  
The second guard, Shokatha, wrinkled his nose. “What’s she doing leaving the city right before the festival tomorrow—” Zaksai shoved the passport in front of Shokatha’s nose, and the older guard’s face immediately took on the same terrified pallor as that of the younger. Both guards were now standing at attention.  
“Permission granted, you may pass,” Shokotha declared, his voice cracking in the middle of the sentence.  
Zaksai handed the passport back to Enessa, who took it, and quietly walked past the guards, who moved promptly out of her way. She was just approaching one of the bends of the tunnel when a voice echoed behind her.  
“Hail Madam! M-may Ophion keep you. T-thank you for your service.” Zaksai called out.  
Enessa nodded curtly, and continued down the passage.  
The line of captive meatlings extended far into the passage. Some of them called out to Enessa in the Common tongue as she passed.  
“Please! Have mercy!”  
“Mercy! Were you not men like us once?”  
“May the All-Mother smite you!”  
Among the crowd of offerings, there was one human woman, dressed in a nightgown, who looked neither frightened nor angry. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were folded just beneath her chin. Enessa could just barely make out what she was saying.  
“ Hail Mitéra, Mother of all that is, as our exile on this plane comes to a close, please cast your eyes over those we leave behind. Let your gaze come to rest on my husband, Baryam, and my daughter, Yulai, and on Ilarion, wherever he is.” Suddenly, the woman seemed to sense that Enessa was looking at her, and her eyes opened. She stared at Enessa directly, without fear, or malice, with a gaze that made Enessa’s heart drop into her stomach.  
“May the All-Mother have mercy on you all,” the woman said, without breaking her gaze.  
Enessa was flabbergasted. She had never been spoken to directly by a meatling. She knew she had nothing to fear from this woman. Even if she was a traitor to Ophion, Krotalonia and her family, she was still a member of the strongest race in the material plane. This woman was nothing but an animal who hadn’t yet been slaughtered.  
I need to calm down, Enessa thought to herself, as she turned to continue walking down the passage. She’s a fool. She thinks she can frighten me. But she’s going to be dead in the morning. I’m not.  
The meatlings grew quieter as Enessa walked further down the passage. Soon, she could hear the voices of the guards, who were conversing with each other in Abyssal, the language of Krotalonia.  
“Do you think the Republic is going to retaliate? We’ve never taken this many offerings before, even for a festival.”  
“If the Elves do strike against us, they’ll have the wrath of Ophion to contend with.”  
“But what’s the reason for this?”  
“It’s the Child of Scales and Feathers, the daughter of the Honorable Thoru Quetzál and the winged meatling elf. She came of age yesterday.”  
Enessa’s heart fell into her stomach as she realized that the guards were talking about her.  
“And?”  
“She’ll follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her blood will give Ophion the strength to strike against the Elven Republic. Soon, our empire will rise again, with Krotalonia at the helm.”  
“Praise Ophion! Will her shell be devoured once it’s been drained?”  
“By the Godling probably. All these offerings are what we’ll be feeding on. Ophion willing, every man, woman and child in the city will feast tomorrow.”  
Enessa kept walking, trying not to think about how Krotalo himself would react when he discovered that she had left. Soon, the passage grew empty, and the ceiling began to get lower.  
Within about an hour, Enessa had to hunch over to keep moving through the tunnel. The walls had turned from granite to sedimentary rock, and there was a new, different kind of light illuminating the space.  
When Enessa rounded the next corner, she finally discovered where the light was coming from. The entrance to the cavern lay just ahead.  
She broke into a run, passed through the entrance, and was immediately hit with the smell of the evening air.  
At first, Enessa wondered if she had just wandered into another cavern. A dark ceiling seemed to hang above her, but it was punctuated by patchy spots of blue. The ground was covered with what looked like fine, white sand. Suddenly, Enessa realized that she had walked into a forest above ground. The white crystals that covered the forest floor were snowflakes, and the patchy blue was the sky. The air was cold, and Enessa could see her own breath forming clouds of condensation as she exhaled.  
Another wave of pain in her wing tips interrupted the beginning of Enessa’s reverie. She needed to get out of the forest, or at least as far away from the cavern as possible. In a few hours, everyone would be awake, and looking for her. She broke into a run. She didn’t know where she was going, or what she would do once she got there, but that problem was being eclipsed by the need to get out from under the trees.  
About an hour passed before the trees began to grow thinner. Soon, Enessa found herself standing in the middle of a dirt road. The color of the sky above her had turned from dark, star speckled blue to pale gold, and the morning was hazy. Hanging above the horizon, shadowed by clouds of fog, was the sun. The air was bracingly cold. It was morning in the world above.  
Good thing I decided to wear layers, Enessa thought to herself. The hooded cloak wasn’t nearly warm enough to truly keep out the chilly air, but it was better than nothing. She was just about to begin walking again, when suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure that had emerged from the forest. It was a human teenager armed with a crossbow, and the arrow was aimed right at Enessa.


	7. An Unexpected Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enessa makes her first friend aboveground.

_March 12, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa___  
“Oy! Put yer hands up!” the boy called out in Common. A large, burly figure emerged from the forest behind him. “We don’t want no trouble, see? Just give us the pack and we’ll be out of yer hair.”  
Enessa’s feathers as she carefully removed her rucksack from her shoulder.  
The bigger of the two boys sneered. “That’s it, nice an’ easy lass—”  
He didn’t get to finish. Enessa’s wings snapped open, and she immediately struck out her hand and released a cloud of pungent smelling gas. It was the only combative cantrip she knew. The older boy collapsed, gasping for air. Enessa removed the dagger from her belt, intending to finish the boy off by slitting his throat, when she heard a twang and a pop. The younger boy had shot an arrow, missed, and punctured the wineskin that Enessa had filled with the draught. The skin, which was quite old, and had already been overfilled, burst, spilling black, viscous liquid into the snow. Enessa stared in shock. The horror of what had just happened was just sinking in when something heavy knocked her to the ground.  
The younger boy had pinned her to the ground, and now had his fingers clenched around her throat. Enessa bared her fangs, spread her wings, and struggled to bite the boy on the wrist, but her vision was quickly beginning to blur. As the boy’s grip tightened, a thought floated to the front of Enessa’s mind. I’m going to die, Me! at the hands of a meatling. Was this some kind of joke?  
Before Enessa’s vision went completely black, she heard something whiz through the air, and the boy’s finger’s slackened. He tumbled over her with a breathless shout. Enessa took a gulp of air, sat up, grabbed the boy by the shoulder, once again baring her fangs.  
“Oy there! Boy! Lay offa her, won’t ye?” A female voice called out. Enessa glanced back. A short, stocky figure stood in the distance, holding a pair of bolas. “ An’ lad! Don’t do anything stupid!” the figure called out. The boy whimpered. Enessa let out a low hiss and picked herself back up. A heavy pair of bolas had caught the boy by the arm, and he was still struggling to rise back up. Now that Enessa was on her feet, she realized that she had both lost her hood, and instinctively spread her wings in the midst of the fight. She quickly refolded them beneath the cloak, and pulled her hood back down over her head. The stranger was standing over the older boy, who was coughing loudly.  
“Aye, what’ve ye lads been doing? Breathin’ smoke for fun? Hold still, t’aint bad. Dunno what it is ye ate, but I’ve got this antidote some old man gave me two towns over.” The stranger removed a vial from her bag and handed it to the boy. The boy drank it, and was immediately sick. “Good job, just cough alla that up. That’s it!” The stranger then approached the smaller of the two boys and crouched down to pick up her bola. The boy immediately sprung up, ran over to his companion, who was still vomiting into the snow, and grabbed him by the arm. Soon the two young thieves had disappeared down the path.  
The stranger stood up, and Enessa finally got a good look at the face of her savior. It was covered in grey fur. It’s nose was pink, and two ears peeked out from beneath a scarf. Enessa had no idea what she was looking at, but if she’d been above ground for a bit longer, she would have realized that the stranger’s face was that of a cat.  
“Hey there Scales, What happened there? Did those lads try to steal yer pack?” The stranger paused, and glanced down at the exploded wineskin. “Or was it booze they were looking for? Sorry they ruined it, although…” the stranger crouched down to examine the wineskin and raised an eyebrow, “honestly, if ye need to carry ‘round that much liquor wherever ye go, this here accident may be a good opportunity to kick a bad habit.”  
Enessa felt all the blood rush into her face. “It wasn’t wine,” she retorted, “it was medicine.”  
The stranger’s eyes widened. “Aye? What’s someone who needs that much medicine doing out on a day like this?! Shouldn’t ye be home now, with a cup’a tea or something?”  
Enessa glowered at the stranger defiantly. “I’m fine,” she answered curtly.  
“Well ya got yer pack, that there’s a blessing from Mitéra if I ever saw one.” The stranger paused, “I’m actually ‘bout to have some breakfast. Ye can join if ye want. There’s a campsite a few miles down in this direction.”  
Enessa was going to refuse, but the growling of her stomach interrupted her. She hadn’t eaten in hours, and as suspicious as she was of the stranger, the idea of breakfast did sound good.  
“Fine,” Enessa answered, “what are we having?”  
The stranger produced two dead squirrels that had been hanging from her backpack. “These wee fellas. Spent most o’ the morning tracking ‘em. Just need to skin ‘em an’ roast ‘em.”  
Enessa bit her lip. She’d never seen squirrels before or eaten any, but the idea of eating meat made her mouth water. She picked up her pack, kicked the remains of the wineskin into the grass, and began walking in the direction the stranger had indicated.  
The stranger sidled up beside her. “So what’s yer name then?”  
Enessa pursed her lips. She had absolutely no interest in small-talk. There was an awkward pause.  
“S’fine if ye don’t wanna say. I’m Spark-in-the-Wilderness.” The stranger held out a fur covered paw. Enessa glanced over in surprise.  
“What did you say your name was?”  
“Spark-in-the-Wilderness, most folks call me ‘Spark.’”  
Enessa raised an eyebrow. “What kind of a name is that?”  
“Dunno. My parents picked it. Most of us have names like that.”  
“Us?”  
Spark nodded. “Yea. Us. The tabaxi.” There was an awkward pause. Enessa had seen humans, elves, half-elves, the short goat-like people known as Dealurians, and the green-skinned swamp-dwelling Mochvara. But she had neither heard of nor seen a Tabaxi before.  
“I—What—What’s a tabaxi?”  
Spark glanced over incredulously. “By the Clowderdame, how long have ye been travelling Scales?”  
Enessa’s face grew warm. She was going to tell the cat-faced traveller to mind her own business, but Spark’s bright, curious, blue eyes, which seemed completely empty of malice, caught her off-guard.  
Damn it all. What’ve I got to lose? She’s not going to take me back to Krotalonia, Enessa thought to herself. She decided to answer. “I set out late last night,” she paused, “Do you know what I am?”  
“Aye, ye’re one of those snake-people everyone’s scared of. I’ve seen some of yer kind in the city before. Never could get a word outta one of ye. Didn’t really understand why people hated ye so much till I came here.”  
Enessa stopped dead in her tracks. “What does that mean?!”  
Spark raised an eyebrow. “Some folks in the village say ye eat people, elves, humans, Mochvara. Can’t imagine why anyone would eat a Mochvar, but I never done it, so I ain’t gonna speak to those who have.” The Tabaxi paused. “Dunno if I want to anyway. I knew a Mochvar back in Tigrin. Shamzi the Proud, they called ‘er. She made this for me!” Spark lifted a chain from around her neck that had what looked like a tooth, a bent nail, and a rat skull “I killed that!” she said proudly.  
Enessa blinked, unsure of how to answer. “It’s...wow.” She couldn’t even think of a suitably sarcastic comment.  
“I know t’ain’t fancy, but twas real sweet of her anyway.” Spark glanced down at the dagger that was now sheathed in Enessa’s belt. “Cool dagger, by the way. Can I see it?”  
Enessa was too overwhelmed to object. She removed the dagger from her belt and handed it to her new companion. Spark took it, and squinted hard at the blade.  
“Damn, that's wicked. Where’d ye get it?”  
“It was my grandfathers,” Enessa answered.  
“Ah! Did he give it to ye? That was nice of him.”  
“No—I—he—” Enessa paused. She wasn’t sure if she felt comfortable telling this stranger about the events of the past 24 hours.  
Spark raised her eyebrows in shock. “Did ye steal it?”  
“I didn’t—” Enessa felt her face grow warm. “—He’s dead. He doesn’t need it.”  
“Aye Scales, t’is fine, I’m not condemning ye. No-one’s perfect.” Spark’s eyes narrowed as she tried to read the writing on the blade. “Is that his name or something?”  
“Part of it is, yes,” Enessa answered.  
“Don’t reckon ye’ll want to tell me what it says, seeing ye’re so tight lipped about names an’ all that.” Spark looked up with a smile and handed the dagger back to Enessa. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind. You seem alright.”  
Enessa tucked the dagger back into its sheath. Nothing about this made sense. This strange furry meatling, who knew about the reputation of what she called “Snake-people” had just invited one to breakfast. Enessa briefly wondered if this was a trap of some kind. She spent the rest of the walk staring hard at Spark as the young Tabaxi talked about the weather, the snow, the cities she’d travelled to, and the people she’d met.  
When the two finally reached a clearing by the side of the road, Spark immediately began clearing the snow out of the fire pit.  
“Oy! Scales, ye wanna get some wood from that pile? Just make sure it’s dry.”  
A small, stone shelf had been placed a few feet away from the campsite. Carved on to the side was a brief verse written in Common.

"Welcome Traveller! but beware  
and to whatever gods, do swear  
That when combusting different fuels  
You always, always, follow rules!  
Start with tinder, then add wood  
Refill me as a neighbor should  
Put your fires completely out  
When you’ve ate and drank some stout  
Or else let giants grind your bones  
As they sit fat on golden thrones  
For travellers, careless, drunk, depraved  
From the inferno shan’t be saved"

As Enessa continued examining the stone structure, she realized that the verse was carved on each side of the stone structure in Elven, Common, and Draconic. Each version of the poem, no matter what language it was in, rhymed.  
Otzu would love this, Enessa thought with a pang. She swallowed the lump that had inconveniently formed in her throat, and returned to the firepit with the wood.  
Spark had completely dusted off the firepit, and was now arranging some tinder in the center.  
“Ye reading the poem?” the tabaxi asked.  
Enessa nodded. “It’s very clever. Have you seen it before?”  
Spark nodded. “t’aint my first time passin’ through these woods, an’ that poem is really popular, ‘specially among elves.”  
“Who wrote it?” Enessa asked, setting the wood down on one of the logs surrounding the fire.  
“Poet’s name is written beneath the Elven version. Ye can go look if ye want. I’m gonna build this fire,” Spark replied.  
Enessa returned to the stone structure, and dusted off some of the snow that had piled up underneath the Elven version of the poem. 

"-Written by Ravalee Langmuir, Citizen Poetess of the Elven Republic of Atoa. Carved by Melgrun and Maevedell of Mt. Medusa in Summer, 1504 RE."

“RE,” Enessa murmured to herself. It had been a little over 1,500 years since the establishment of the Elven Republic, 10 years after Lord Ophion’s empire had been driven underground. Calculating the difference between the two calendars in her head, Enessa was able to date the poem to 1514 in the year of the Godling Krotalo’s rule, about 16 years before.  
“Oy! Scales! Wanna see something cool?” Spark shouted. Enessa turned around in confusion. The Tabaxi had her palms facing the firepit. She murmured something under her breath, and a stream of what looked like liquid fire flew from the tips of her fingers into one of the crevices between the logs. The fire roared to life, and Spark let out a loud whoop. “Aye! How d’ye like them apples? That there’s my first time doing it without burning anything I didn’t mean to.”  
Enessa looked on with a mixture of shock and slight envy. She’d never been taught a spell of that type. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her.  
“Would you mind teaching me that spell?”  
Spark’s face lit up. “Aye, happily. T’is not a spell though, t’is a cantrip. I’ll teach it to ye after breakfast, but only if ya teach me the one ye used on that poor, burly lad back there.”  
Enessa nodded curtly in agreement, and sat down on one of the logs near the fire. The warmth that it cast made her feel as though she’d just stepped into a hot bath. Spark had seated herself on one of the logs, and was now in the process of cleaning one of the squirrel carcasses. Enessa sat in silence for about half an hour while Spark stuck the two squirrel carcasses on a split, and balanced the skewer on two branches she had stuck in the ground near the fire. Soon, the squirrels were cooked, and the skewer was split in half. Spark offered the bigger squirrel to Enessa, who took it, and began eating immediately. The meat was dry, tough, and slightly gamey, and it felt like the best thing Enessa had ever tasted.  
“So where is it ye’re from exactly?” Spark piped up. She had already finished half of her squirrel. “I don’t see yer kind out in this country very much.”  
Eessa took another bite of meat. Although the food and fire had helped some, she still couldn’t help but feel suspicious of the Tabaxi’s motivations. Even so, as she wracked her brain for reasons to keep anything from this stranger, she failed to find anything.  
If the worst happens, I can still take her, Enessa thought to herself. There’s only one of her, and what happened with the boys back there was nothing but a fluke.  
“I’m from the city of Krotalonia, Capitol of Lord Ophion’s empire.”  
Spark chuckled, “Easy to call yerselves the capitol when ye’re the only city left.”  
Enessa bit the inside of her cheek. “We’re not the only ones,” she retorted.  
Spark shot Enessa a playful grin. “Aye, who died an’ made ye king then?”  
Enessa was about to ask what the tabaxi meant, when she realized that the phrase was a euphemism. “Ophion made us Capitol. Our Godling, Krotalo, was one of his most loyal commanders in the war of Elven Aggression.”  
“Is that what ye call the Autumn Rebellion? That there’s a mouthful, ‘war of Elven Aggression.’”  
Enessa pursed her lips. “I think it’s an apt description.”  
Spark shrugged. “Aye, I’m not complaining. We Tabaxi sided with the elves on that one, because they promised to let us go where we pleased, but that there was before my time. Anyway, Mitéra is the one who gave us victory, not the elves.”  
Enessa pursed her lips and turned her attention back to her squirrel. She had just taken two more bites when the tabaxi spoke again.  
“By the way—mm” Spark paused to chew and swallow her last bite of breakfast, “—ye can take yer hood off, ye know.”  
Enessa raised an eyebrow. “I’d rather not,” she replied.  
“Aye? That’s fine. Ye going bald or something? Don’t worry, there’s no shame in it. Happens to most folks at some point, even elves.”  
Enessa glared at the tabaxi from under her hood. She could feel the heat radiating from her face.  
“Alright then, Damn, I was just wondering’ why ye were wearing’ it. We can talk about something else if it suits ye,” Spark replied. “D’ye have any family back where ye’re from? Ma? Dad? Brothers?”  
Enessa took her last bite of meat from the squirrel carcass and frowned at her breakfast companion from across the firepit. “You ask a lot of questions,” she replied, curtly.  
“Aye? I s’pose I do. Thought it might be rude if I were to just keep talking about myself.” Spark shrugged. “Also, I can’t say I’m not a little curious about ye. Like I said, I never talked to a snake person face to face.”  
Enessa placed the carcass, which had been nearly stripped of meat, to the side, and said nothing. The air around the fire was incredibly warm, and she could feel beads of sweat running down the back of her neck. The heavy cloak, which was by no means thick enough to keep out the cold away from the fire, was now merely exacerbating the problem. Her wings were already beginning to feel stiff. Enessa heavily doubted that the Tabaxi would react negatively if she took the cloak off and revealed her feathers. At the very worst, Spark’s questions would simply resume with new enthusiasm. Enessa glanced up at her travelling companion.  
“If I take this off, do you promise not to make a huge fuss about what you see?” She asked, a little impatiently.  
“Aye, ye don’t have to do that just to satisfy my curiosity,” Spark replied.  
“I have no interest in satisfying your curiosity. I’m merely doing this to avoid overheating,” Enessa hissed.  
Spark lifted up her paws. “Don’t let me stop ye, do whatever ye want.”  
Enessa paused, took a breath, and untied the cloak. The cool air that was blowing away from the fire was tempered by the warmth of the morning sun on Enessa’s back. She spread her wings to their full width and sighed, this was better. Suddenly she realized that Spark was staring at her.  
“By the Clowderdame,” Spark murmured.  
Enessa glowered at the Tabaxi. “I told you not to make a fuss!”  
“Aye, I didn’t say nothin’!” Spark paused, “I just never seen a snake-person with wings before. It’s almost like—” The tabaxi suddenly paused. Something had clicked, and she was looking at Enessa with a mixture of incredulity and scrutiny. “By the Clowderdame...is yer mother the elven lass that got taken underground?”  
Enessa’s feathers immediately bristled. "Stay calm," she thought to herself, "Just deny it. Perhaps she won’t be able to tell."  
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Enessa stammered defensively. “You—you must be confusing me with someone else.”  
“Oh hell no. Ye’ve got the same wings that those Caelian elves have in the cities.” Spark suddenly tilted her head as though she was trying to look at something behind Enessa. “Something’s wrong with the tips though, like ye’re missing a few feathers or something.”  
Enessa could feel her face growing warm. “You’re acting delusional,” she said firmly, trying to imitate the voice her father or Lady Takah used when scolding someone. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and it’s incredibly insolent of you to interrogate me like this about something I know nothing about.”  
Spark raised both eyebrows. “Alright then, sorry. I’ll let it alone.”  
Enessa took her hood and pulled it back over her head. The beads of sweat on the back of her neck had crystallized into a salty crust. Before she could properly dwell on her outrage over the Tabaxi’s line of questioning, she felt a sharp pain in her wing tips. "Ophion smite me," she cursed to herself. She was above ground, without her medicine, in the company of an annoyingly talkative stranger. "I’ll keep going as far as I can," she thought. "I should have another day before something truly bad happens. Perhaps when we get into town I can get ingredients to make more—" her thoughts were immediately interrupted by another wave of burning.  
“Ah, Scales, are ye alright?” Spark asked. “Ye don’t look well.”  
“I’m fine. We should get going. Is there a town nearby?”  
“Aye. It’s called Kráspedo.”  
“Is there an apothecary there?”  
Spark nodded. “Aye, there’s a healer just outside of town, old monk named Oloro. We oughta to put out the fire before we leave though.”  
“How does that work?”  
“Leave it to me,” Spark replied. With a flick of her hand, she had caused a patch of snow to lift itself off the ground, liquify, and stream into the fire pit. She repeated this action several times until the fire had been sufficiently quenched. Once she had finished, she turned back to Enessa with a grin. “Wicked, eh?”  
Enessa nodded, reluctantly. “Is that also a cantrip?” she asked.  
“Aye. Like I said earlier, I’ll teach ye this one too if ye teach me another of yers.”  
“I’m afraid I don’t know any others that can be used in combat,” Enessa murmured.  
“That’s fine!” Spark replied eagerly. “Ready to go?”  
Enessa nodded, stood up and gritted her teeth. In one swift motion, she hoisted her messenger bag onto her shoulder. Her head was beginning to ache, her mouth felt dry, and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest.  
Spark glanced at her companion reluctantly, but said nothing. The two resumed their walk along the side of the path.  



	8. Exit Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enessa begins to suffer from the effects of withdrawal.

March 12, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa  
The hours-long walk that ensued was one of intense agony for Enessa. Spark sensed her companion’s discomfort, but didn’t seem to know what to say. The first 30 minutes after the two travellers had left the camp-site were unusually quiet.  
“Spark?” Enessa asked, desperately in need of distraction.  
“Aye?” Spark answered.  
Enessa wracked her brain for something to ask about. One specific question floated to the front of her mind. Against her better judgement, and desperate for anything that would divert her attention from the throbbing pain in her head, she decided to ask it.  
“What were you talking about earlier, with the Elven woman who was taken by snake-people?”  
Spark turned around in surprise. “Um...so ye don’t know anything about this?”  
“Does it look like I do?” Enessa retorted, spreading her wings slightly in anger.  
“Alright then. S’pose I should start at the beginning then...so...there’s this fella in the city of Lunapoli, Iangolor Langmuir. Bit of an oddball, as far as elves go anyway. His father helped found the republic, an’ he fought in some big battles with agents of the Ophionite Empire, before he got injured.”  
“And?”  
“Ah, so around a hundred years ago or so, he had a daughter. Very pretty, very clever. Every elf I’ve ever met still talks about her. She grew up to be a writer of poems an’ such—” Spark paused, “actually she wrote the poem on that old stone cupboard where we stored all the fire wood.”  
Enessa looked up. “She wrote that?”  
“Aye. Like I said, really good writer. Most famous one since the Autumn Rebellion I reckon, an’ ye know how much elves like writing poetry.” The tabaxi chuckled. “Anyway, when she was around 180 years old, some of the snake-people sent out a message that they wanted to open up diplomatic talks. Bit of a shock really, but the fella I mentioned earlier, Iangolor Langmuir, he agreed to host their ambassador, this young lad who folks called Thoru Silvertongue.”  
Enessa’s heart nearly stopped, and she briefly forgot about the amount of pain she was in. “Thoru Silvertongue?” she asked.  
“Aye. So while those ‘diplomatic talks’ were happening, an’ the lad was a guest at the old man’s house, he began courting the young lady. We don’t know what happened or what he said to her, but soon it came out that she was pregnant.”  
Enessa was now listening to the tabaxi with rapt attention. She almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  
Spark, appreciatively taking note of Enessa’s amazement, continued. “So anyway, she decides to keep the baby, but this Silvertongue fellow wants to take it back to his home with him, without her.” Spark’s tail twitched in what seemed like irritation. “Real bastards men are these days. Doesn’t matter if they’re elves or Mochvara or snake-men. When I was still young, I used to have this one fella as a neighbor, Rolling-Hill. He was real sweet on my sister for a bit, then once she was pregnant with his litter, POOF! Ye’d think someone had set his tail on fire—”  
“What happened next?” Enessa interrupted, a little frustrated.  
“Oh, with my sister—?”  
“No! With the meatli—I mean—the elf who got pregnant.”  
“Oooooh! Ok, right. So she has the baby, an’ things are going pretty well. Mum’s happy. Old Iangolor gets to be a grandpa again, so he’s REALLY happy. Baby’s probably happy too. But then shit hits the fan.”  
Enessa raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”  
Spark paused, twitching her tail thoughtfully. “Honestly, no-one knows. Iangolor’s half-elf grandson said he saw Silvertongue in his aunt’s window, but whatever he saw, no-one was in the room when it caught on fire.”  
Enessa’s feathers twitched. “When it what?”  
“Caught fire. Someone used a really powerful spell. Set the whole room ablaze. They put it out before it got anywhere else, but when they did, the mother an’ baby were gone.”  
Enessa opened her mouth to respond, but the words didn’t come. She knew how the rest of the story went. It was almost as though Tashihsall the bloodletter was whispering in her ear again. “Cut off as she was from the void where her accursed people fly, all she did was ask about you.”  
The bloodletter’s voice was interrupted by Spark, who was looking down at Enessa with a worried expression. Her words were lost in the howling wind.  
The throbbing pain in her head was seeping into every bone in her body. She couldn’t feel anything, she couldn’t see. The smoke from the burning bedroom was filling her ears, eyes, mouth, and nose. There was nothing else. Lady Takah had grabbed her by the shoulder and was pushing her down.  
_...We are cattle, watered by time, and harvested. In the end, all of us will be re-absorbed into the void…_

__\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------__  
Spark heard her new companion collapse behind her before she saw what had happened. When she turned around, Enessa (who was still only known to Spark as “Scales”) had fallen to her knees. Spark caught her before she dashed her head against the frozen ground, and quickly removed the messenger bag from Enessa’s shoulder. She then gently batted Enessa’s face with a fur covered paw.  
“Scales? Ye alright?! What’s wrong?! SCALES?!”  
There was no response. Spark pressed her forefinger beneath Enessa’s feathered ear. She could feel a pulse.  
“Well this is shit,” Spark murmured. She’d gotten used to having conversations with herself when alone. “I wonder if anyone’s gonna be coming down the road? That would be a real blessing.” She glanced back at Enessa. “Aye, s’pose I should stay by her then.”  
The tabaxi removed her own pack seated herself by the side of the road next to her companion. She then removed her scarf, and stuffed it beneath Enessa’s head, to keep it from coming into contact with the rocky road. Enessa’s wings were spread out, and just barely covered by her billowing cloak. About an hour passed by. As the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, a small bird of prey began circling overhead. Spark immediately removed one of her bolas from her side pouch, ready to use it in case the bird turned out to be a vulture. “Aye lad, move along now, ye won’t find anything to eat here.”  
The bird circled lower, and Spark suddenly realized that it wasn’t a vulture at all. It was a very small eagle. It’s feathers were a bright vermillion, striped with yellow. It’s beak, which curved to a point, was blacker than pitch.  
“Hm, Are ye supposed to be an omen or something then?” Spark murmured, tucking her bola back into her pouch.  
The bird landed on Spark’s backpack, gave a cheerful sounding squawk, and tilted it’s head to the side.  
“Good afternoon to ye too,” Spark responded.  
The bird began pecking curiously at the edge of the sleeping bag that now covered Enessa.  
“Aye, she’s in a pretty bad way right about now,” Spark replied. “I’d take her to the village, but I can’t lug her there all by myself.”  
The bird gave a sympathetic squawk. Spark smiled and reached over to touch the bird’s feathers. The eagle bowed its head, allowing spark to scratch behind its ears.  
“Well ye’re social,” Spark murmured. “What on earth brought ye over here? Did Mitéra send ye?”  
The eagle made a strange noise and coughed up a small, flaky looking pellet onto the ground. It then turned back to Spark with an eager sounding cluck.  
Spark wrinkled her nose. “Am I supposed to be impressed with that?”  
The bird tilted its head as if to say “aren’t ye?”  
Spark raised an eyebrow as though an idea had suddenly occurred to her. “Hey, would ye mind doing a job for me?”  
The bird hopped up onto Spark’s backpack  
“Can ye fly up the road a bit an’ see if anyone’s coming in a cart or something like it? An’ if they are, could ye get them to move a little faster?”  
The eagle clucked once, and immediately flew off. Spark watched it disappear up the path.  
“Well, that was probably a waste of time,” Spark murmured to herself. “I’ve been travelling alone for too long.”


	9. The Last Gladewatcher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Help Arrives

March 12, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa  
The sun had just begun to descend towards the western horizon when Spark was jolted awake by a loud caw coming from up the path. The caw was followed by the sound of wheels on the road. Spark immediately jumped to her feet and gave a loud whoop as she a cart approaching in the distance. Seated behind the horses was a tall, burly looking human male and a young woman who looked like his daughter. Spark ran in front of the cart and raised her hands in the air.  
“OY! MISTER!”  
The man gave a shout as he pulled the horses to a halt. His face was red. “Watch it!”  
“Sorry sir. My friend an’ I need a ride to Kráspedo.”  
The man looked over at Enessa. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked, a little suspiciously.  
“I dunno. Two lads on the road broke the thing she was using to carry medicine.”  
The man was about to answer when the girl sitting next to him clasped his arm.   
“Pa, she’s got scales!”   
All of the color drained from the man’s face as he finally caught a glimpse of the diamond-shaped scales that covered Enessa’s nose. “By the All-Mother!” he whispered.  
Shit, Spark thought to herself. She smiled nervously at the man. “So...about that ride?”  
The Man took a breath to gather himself, and then turned to Spark with a very somber expression.  
“Look here Tabaxi, I dunno how long you’ve known that thing, but you seem like a good sort who may have just gotten in over her head. I’ll give you a ride to Kráspedo, but I’m not taking any snake-people into my village.”  
Spark glanced at the ground.   
“So,” the man continued, “what’ll it be? It’s gonna be dark soon. That’s when they come out to hunt. Her being here is their business, not ours.”   
Spark bit her lip, and turned back towards Enessa. “I’m sorry in advance for this Scales,” She murmured, before turning back to the man. “Alright, I didn’t wanna pull this card, but she can’t go back with the snake-men. She’s Ravalee Langmuir’s daughter.”   
The faces of the man and the girl changed almost instantaneously.   
“T-that’s impossible,” the man stammered.   
“She’s got feathers. If you come help me get her in the cart, you’ll see ‘em.” Spark answered.   
The man bit his lip. He looked somewhat reluctant.   
His daughter gently tightened her grip on his hand. “Pa? Please, we promised Oloro that we’d tell him if we found anything—”  
“Alright, dammit. Yulai, you hold the horses.” The man handed the reins of the horses off to his daughter and dismounted from the cart. As soon as he’d walked over to Enessa, Spark defiantly lifted her friend’s cloak, revealing blue-black feathers.   
The Man stared at them in shock, before cursing under his breath. “Damn you, Oloro.”  
Getting Enessa into the cart was surprisingly easy, even with her wings. Spark removed her bedroll from her pack to serve as a more suitable pillow, stuffing it under Enessa’s head.  
“Hey, Shoo!” The man exclaimed. Perched at the edge of the cart was the small eagle that Spark had seen earlier. He looked incredibly pleased with himself, and gave an excited cluck as Spark glanced up at him. Spark grinned.   
“Aye, he’s mine. It’s alright,” she reassured the man as she hopped into the cart.   
The man glanced at the bird suspiciously. “You promise to take it with you once you leave?”  
“Aye, Sir. Thank you!”  
The man nodded, and with a flick of the reins, the cart finally began to move.  
By the time the sun sank below the horizon, the cart was still rattling down the road. The air had grown colder, and snow had begun to fall. Both Spark and Yulai huddled in one corner of the cart, shivering. Spark had removed her coat to wrap it around the head of Enessa, who’s eyelashes and brows were dusted with snow.   
“How long have you known her?” The girl asked.   
Spark counted out the hours on her fingers. “‘Bout twelve hours, give or take.”   
Yulai glanced nervously at Enessa. “You’re very kind to be looking out for a stranger like this.”  
“Pretty sure the word that Yulai’s looking for is ‘foolish,’” the man muttered.   
Spark shot the man a sharp look. “The All-Mother’s foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of the poets.”  
The man muttered something inaudible, before pulling his scarf over the lower half of his face.   
“I’m sorry about him,” Yulai murmured.   
Spark shrugged. “‘S alright.” She glanced at the dark woods surrounding the cart. “Things have gotten tense since I was here last, haven’t they?”  
Yulai nodded. Spark noticed that she was fiddling nervously with an iron charm around her neck. “250 were taken last night.”  
Spark’s ears were suddenly flattened against her skull. “250?! Taken by who?” She exclaimed.   
Yulai nudged her head towards the forest. “The snakes. They came into our village at night. Pa and I were sent to Fort Fensalor this morning to give the elves a report.”   
Spark’s tail twitched nervously. “What did the elves say?”   
“That they’d look into it,” The man barked angrily. “Damn knife-eared heathens, all of them.”  
“Pa!” Yulai scolded. Her father fell silent, staring off into the distance with haunted eyes.  
Spark glanced back at Yulai. “May I pray with you?”   
“Of course,” Yulai replied.   
Spark clasped Yulai’s hands in hers, and, bringing them to her forehead, whispered the lyrics of the first hymn that came to mind.   
The queen of sky my mother is/Whose mercy fails me never/I naught shall lack if I am hers/And she is mine forever/Through vales of tears, I fear no ill/The Queen of Love walks by me/A crown of stars around her head/And enemies behind me  
Yulai chuckled, glancing down at Enessa. “Did you pick that prayer on purpose?”  
Spark paused, looked at Enessa, and let out a laugh. “Nah. Guess the circumstances make it all the more fitting though.”  
Yulai nodded, burying her hands back in her furs.   
After another hour of travelling, a light appeared in the distance. Built around a large tree was a small stone cottage with a candle in the window. As the man halted the cart in front of it, the door opened, and a tall, bearded giant with blue-grey skin stepped out. It was a Gladewatcher, a guardian of the forest, dressed in what appeared to be the robes of a monk. He stood at about 8 feet tall. His eyes were a dark brown and snow-white beard was about a foot shorter than his robe. On his large hands, which were about the size of a cast iron skillet, he wore a dirty pair of fingerless gloves.   
“Oloro!” Spark shouted, jumping out of the cart.   
The Gladewatcher looked slightly taken aback. “Spark-In-The-Wilderness! And Baryam and Yulai as well, is everything alright?”   
The man driving the cart, who’s name was Baryam, shook his head. “The Tabaxi was trying to get a ride for this sick snake-woman we found at the side of the road.”  
Oloro raised his eyebrows nervously. “Well, that was either very generous or very foolish.”  
“But Oloro, the girl has wings,” Yulai responded.   
The Monk’s face suddenly changed from a look of vague amusement to one of disbelief.  
“Wings?”  
Spark nodded. The old monk stepped out of the doorway, and made his way over to the cart. Enessa was still lying down in the back, her hood pulled over her head. Oloro gently moved part of the hood back with his large fingers and took a sharp breath inward.   
“Oloro, d’you think it’s truly—” Baryam began.   
Oloro shot him a stern look, then turned back to Enessa. He gently lifted her out of the cart.   
“Baryam, would you mind getting me a stretcher. You will find it inside, by the door.”  
Baryam obeyed, and brought the wooden stretcher out from inside the doorway. Getting Enessa into the house was surprisingly easy. Given that the cottage had been constructed for someone of Oloro’s size, the door was both wide and tall. Soon, Enessa was lying on her stomach on a lumpy, oversized sofa in Oloro’s parlor. Spark collapsed into the empty space on the couch, and was soon joined by the eagle, who had flown in from the cart. It bowed it’s feathered head, inviting Spark to scratch it.   
“Good boy,” she murmured, stroking it’s neck. The eagle gave a satisfied cluck.   
“Oh, where did this fellow come from?” Oloro was now standing above the couch, looking down at Spark and the eagle.   
“Him? Oh, he came up to me when I was waiting for someone to pick us up. I think he lead the man with the cart here. Oh!” Spark reached into her pocket, where she’d stored the pellet the eagle had given her. “He also gave me this!” She handed the pellet to Oloro. Oloro took it between his large fingers and inspected it.   
“Fascinating,” he murmured, before handing the pellet back to Spark.  
Suddenly, the door to the cottage swung back open, and Baryam strode into the room.   
“Oloro, Is there anything else you need from me?” He asked. For the first time, in the lighted parlor of the cottage, Spark had a chance to look at the man’s face. He looked exhausted, haggard, and his eyes were ringed by dark circles.   
“No, Baryam, not at all.” Oloro answered, “but I sense there is something that you might need from me.”  
Baryam glanced down at the floor sheepishly. “Can we go into another room, please?” He asked.   
“Of course,” the giant answered. “Spark, can you stay with the young lady? I’ll be back soon.”   
Spark nodded, and Baryam and Oloro walked into what looked like the kitchen, shutting the door behind them.   
Spark tried sitting still for about half a minute, and then immediately got up and pressed herself against the kitchen door. She could hear voices on the other side.   
“It’s the Elves. They won’t do anything. Have you sensed anything unusual? Anything at all?” Baryam asked.   
“Only that they were taken underground,” Oloro answered, gravely.  
“But d’you know where?”   
There was a brief pause before Oloro spoke again. “Baryam, do not be foolish. You know entering that place would be suicide.”  
Silence fell. Spark pulled away from the door, certain that either Baryam or Oloro had sensed someone listening in. She was about to walk back to the couch when, suddenly, Baryam spoke again. His words were slow, stilted, almost illegible, and punctuated by barely suppressed sobs. Spark felt as though she’d just been punched in the stomach.   
“Baryam—”  
“What am I going to tell Yulai? First Ilarion, now Danae. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault.”  
Spark walked back to the couch and collapsed into it once again. Suddenly, she heard a voice behind her. She peeked over the back of the couch to see the girl, Yulai, standing in the doorway.   
“Is Pa in there?” Yulai asked.   
“I—Um—Yea, I think so,” Spark stammered, feeling a little sheepish.   
The girl’s face fell. “Are they talking about Ma?” She asked.   
“I don’t—”  
“You were listening, weren’t you?”   
Spark’s tail twitched nervously. Embarrassing as this was, there was no point in lying about it now.   
“Aye, they were talking about someone who got taken underground.” Spark answered.   
Yulai’s glanced nervously at the door. The reason for Baryam’s hostility towards Enessa suddenly became frighteningly clear.  
“I’m sorry,” Spark murmured.   
“It’s fine,” Yulai replied.   
“I’ll keep you an’ your family in my prayers to the All-Mother.”   
The girl smiled weakly. “Thank you.” Suddenly, the kitchen door opened.   
“Yulai, we’re going home.” Baryam’s eyes were red and glassy. He looked as though he had aged half a decade in the space of a few minutes. Yulai nodded, and darted out of the door.   
Baryam followed her, slowly, with a heavy step.   
“Oy Mister,” Spark called out.   
The man turned around.   
“Yes?” he said, distantly.   
Spark glanced down at the floor. “May the Clowderdame keep you,” she said.   
The man nodded mechanically. “Thank you, Tabaxi. Be well.” He then followed his daughter out of the cottage and closed the door behind him.   
Spark collapsed back onto the sofa. The eagle, who had been perched on the arm of the chair, clucked with what sounded like concern. Spark didn’t respond.   
“Was your curiosity satisfied, Daughter of Cats?” A low voice echoed from the kitchen doorway. Oloro had re-entered the parlor.   
Spark looked away from him with bitter sheepishness. “Aye. I reckon this is the part where you say ‘I told you so,’ or something like it.”  
The Monk approached the sofa and glanced at Enessa, who was still sleeping.   
“I think you may have learned your lesson. Eavesdropping is an activity with great risks, and fleeting rewards.” Oloro crouched down on one knee. Even in this position, he still towered above the sofa, which lay low, so as to accommodate smaller guests.He quietly placed a large finger on Enessa’s wrist.  
“When did you meet her?” he asked, without looking up.   
“This morning. I was walking an’ I heard someone shouting down the road. Two lads from the village were holding her up. She used a cantrip on one, but the other got her around her neck. I pulled him off her, an’ they ran.”   
Oloro raised his eyebrows. “Which cantrip did she use?”   
“Dunno. T’was like a green cloud or something. Smelled funny. The lad she used it on was having trouble breathing.”  
“The Cantrip of Ophion’s breath,” Oloro muttered.   
“I gave the lad some of that stuff you give people for food poisoning or something. Dunno if it was the right thing to do.”  
“Well it certainly wasn’t the worst thing you could have done,” Oloro replied. “Were these boys human?”  
“Aye, ‘course they were.”  
Oloro sighed. “Then I suppose I should expect a visit from their mothers tomorrow. Was the girl like this after the attack?”  
“Nah. She was angry. They’d broken this wine skin she was carrying. She said it was full of medicine. I thought perhaps she was lying to me, but then I smelled the stuff that spilled out of the skin, an’ it definitely weren’t wine.I offered to take her to an apothecary at the next town we came to, we stopped at the next campsite we came to for breakfast, an’ she passed out a few hours after we’d started walking towards town.” Spark got on her knees so her head was level with Enessa’s. “Is it very bad?”  
“Quite.” Oloro pulled his finger away from Enessa’s wrist, rose to his feet, and walked over to the book shelf that looked as though it had been carved into the side of the tree that the house was built around. Oloro closely examined the shelt, and pulled one of the books off the shelf. It was slightly smaller than the palm of his hand. He then turned back to Spark. “Can you tell me what you remember about the contents of the broken wineskin?”   
Spark wracked her brain. “Aye, t’was black, foul smelling, an’...what’s the word...slimy-like...”   
“Viscous?”  
“Aye! There ‘tis.” Spark replied, grinning. “Viscous, nasty looking. Couldn’t tell what it was.”  
Oloro was flipping through the book. The pages were made of thick vellum, rather than paper. Suddenly, something seemed to catch his eye, and his face fell.  
“Um, Oloro? You still there?” Spark asked.  
Oloro closed the book and looked up. His expression had become very grave. “Yes, I’ll be fine. Would you mind helping me a bit with your friend? I do not know how she might react if she were to wake up and find herself in a room with a stranger.”  
Spark nodded. “Aye, D’you know what’s hurting her?”  
Oloro shook his head. “It is difficult to point down. The potion in her wineskin is called the Draught of Ekhi. It is used for the suppression of pain. If she had not been taking it, I might have been able to sense some sort of the changes in the flow of her energy.”  
Spark’s tail twitched nervously. She hated it when the giant resorted to using technical terms in ordinary conversation. “Soooo...What does that mean?”  
Oloro paused, visibly exerting himself in order to find a more concise way in which to express his thoughts. “Right now, everything hurts. Like I said, she’s in withdrawal. We need to fix that before we do anything else.”   
“Wicked! Okay, tell me what you need.”   
30 minutes later, Oloro and Spark had carried Enessa into the kitchen. The room was slightly smaller than the parlor, with much higher ceilings, a stone table, and a cauldron that simmered in the wood-burning stove. The walls had been whitewashed so as to make the room as bright as possible. The table itself was wide and long enough for two human adults to lie down on comfortably, and had been covered in a white sheet.   
Oloro placed Enessa on her stomach, and adjusted her head so she wasn’t lying with her face into the table. Once she was lying down comfortably, Oloro placed his hand gently between her shoulders.   
“I need to examine her wings—”   
Spark immediately removed the cloak, revealing Enessa’s wings. Oloro cautiously allowed his hand to hover over them, and immediately winced.   
“Did you feel something?”  
The giant nodded. “I found the source.” He stroked his long beard, looking more uncertain than Spark had ever seen him.   
“What’s wrong?” She asked. Oloro crouched down on one knee and lifted the edge of one of Enessa’s wings. Where a row of primary flight feathers should have been, there was nothing but pink scar tissue. The edge of the wing had been cut off completely. Spark quickly glanced over at the other wing and realized that the same thing had been done.   
“Shit...that’s not supposed to look like that, is it?” Spark murmured.   
Oloro sighed and shook his head. His expression had once again become grave.   
Spark suddenly caught sight of the dark blue tattoo that snaked across Enessa’s upper shoulders. “An’ what’s that?”  
Oloro didn’t answer immediately. He had taken a moment to duck into the parlor. When he returned, he was carrying a heavy, dusty tome that was bigger than either of his hands. Spark immediately recognized the text of the book once it had been opened. She glanced back at Enessa’s knife, which was still in her paw.  
“Oy! I’ve seen that before! It’s on here.” She triumphantly held up the instrument. The strange engravement glistened in the lamplight of the kitchen. “What’s in the book?”  
“It is one of the books that was found in the temple of the Anathema Porthidio, after he was defeated at the battle of Fort Fensalor. One of the Elven commanders, Aelen Gendry, knew what the Ophionites had done to my brothers under the creature’s rule, and felt that I ought to have it.” The monk flipped the book open to a page that was decorated with a large illustration of an Ophionite pure blood with what looked like a snake tattooed on his shoulders. The similarity between the marks that had been made on him and what little could be seen on Enessa’s back was uncanny.   
“Ah...what’s up with him?” Spark asked, privately wondering if she even wanted to know.   
“It is an illustration of an offering meant for Ophion. This book was used by one of the temple’s high priests, known to the Ophionites as the Bloodletter.”  
Spark glanced back at Enessa with horror. “Aye, poor Scales.”  
Oloro looked up in confusion. “Scales?”   
Spark felt her face grow warm under her fur. “Aye, she never gave me her name. I understand why now. I just called her Scales—” Spark suddenly paused. A new thought, that had lingered in the back of her mind since she and Enessa had been picked up by the man in the cart, suddenly returned to the surface of her subconscious. “Um...Oloro?” she said.   
“Yes, Daughter of Cats?” the Monk answered.  
Spark took a breath. “I know the man said that this was Iangolor Langmuir’s grand-daughter, but he said it because that’s what I told him.” Spark paused. “I don’t actually know if she is or not. I know she’s got wings an’ all that, but when I asked her if she was, she denied it.” Spark glanced back down at Enessa. “I was certain she was lying—”  
“She was.” Oloro interrupted.   
Spark looked back at the old giant in dismay. “Say what now? Well that’s disappointing.”   
“What makes you say that?”  
Spark bit her lip. “You’d think someone would trust you a little more once you’ve given them breakfast.”   
Oloro chuckled. “Try not to remain angry, Daughter of Cats. Such resentment does not suit you.” The Old Monk paused, and thoughtfully stroked his beard. “You ought to go to bed, Daughter of Cats, I’m going to give your friend a medicine that will help her get the last of that potion out of her system. Once the detoxification is complete, I will see what I can do about her wings.”  
Spark hopped off the table. Her heart felt as though it had sunk into her stomach. A murmured thank you was all she could manage before returning to the parlor. As she lay awake on the sofa, turning the events of the day over in her head, Oloro continued to work. The sun had just begun to peak over the horizon, when both of the guests occupying the cottage had been put to bed.


	10. Earthbound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for physical/emotional abuse of a child

_After drinking the water in which four tablespoons of the strange black draught had been dissolved, Enessa couldn’t help but feel a little lightheaded. Her father, Thoru, sat beside her. Her new step-mother, Lady Takah, stood in the doorway, cradling her swollen belly in her arms._  
_“Now Enessa, I know we gave you the medicine, but what the healer is going to do will be very painful.” Thoru murmured. “You must promise me that you won’t cry, and you won’t move.”_  
_“I won’t.” Enessa heard herself say. She was lying on her bed, on her stomach. The healer moved across the room. She could feel his hands running over the two strange, feathered growths on her back. Suddenly, she felt the piercing of a cold, steel razor cutting into the edge of the wing. Enessa gave a small shout. Tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her cheeks, and she suddenly felt her father’s iron grip on her wrist._  
_“Enessa!” Thoru hissed, “Don’t be foolish. Be strong. You’re acting like a meatling child.”_  
_Enessa bit the back of her other hand._  
_The process was repeated one more time. Soon after, a hot iron was produced, and the wounds were cauterized. Enessa would later realized that the healer had taken his razor and sliced off the edges of the wings. The thought of it made her stomach crawl._  
_Uhtliah and the healer helped her sit up. Thoru glanced at his daughter with visible disappointment. “Now, it’s going to keep feeling very painful, but we’ll give you more of the medicine you had earlier, so it won’t hurt. You’ll take it every day when you wake up and before you go to sleep.”_  
_Enessa gave a sheepish nod._  
_That night, she dreamed that she was floating through a void, then a light appeared in the distance, and the ground rushed up to meet her. When she woke up the next morning, the tips of her wings felt as though they were on fire, and her mattress was soaked with sweat._

March 13, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa  
When Enessa opened her eyes, she assumed that she had simply fallen from one dream to another. She was lying in a large, soft bed, covered in an overstuffed quilt. The tips of her wings still ached, but then again so did everything else. Her upper lip was covered in sweat, and her hands were shaking. Suddenly, she felt a lurch in her stomach, and realized that she needed to use the bathroom. Getting out of bed was difficult, but walking was even harder. The stone floor of the room was cold, and Enessa had to hang on to the wall for support. Soon, she came to a small, closet-sized room with an indentation scooped out of the rock, and a bucket of water sitting next to a pump. Almost immediately, she felt something hot and sour rising in the back of her throat, and spent what felt like a quarter of an hour crouched over the makeshift toilet. When she next lifted her head, her feathers were standing up on end, and there was a bitter taste in her mouth. She turned to the water pump, and quickly began to work the handle. Cold, crisp tasting water poured out from the tap. Enessa drank several gulps, and then used some to wash her hands and rinse out the toilet. Feeling slightly more awake, she began to take note of her new surroundings. The last thing she remembered was walking down the path with Spark. She briefly panicked, and wondered if she was back underground, but when she ran to her room she was immediately met with the sight of stars through the frost-covered windowpane.  
“Where am I?” She murmured. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized that there were dark objects scattered across the stone floor of her room. She picked one up, only to realize that it was one of her long, blue-black feathers.  
Fully awake, and increasingly alarmed, Enessa cast a light cantrip onto the feather she held between her fingers. The small stone room was filled with cool, blue light. A large door, a few feet from the bed, stood ajar. Enessa walked through it, and found herself in what looked like a kitchen. The walls were whitewashed, and a fire burned gently in the stove. Enessa crouched down in front of it, allowing the heat to wash over her face. Once she had sufficiently warmed herself, she made her way towards the door at the other end of the kitchen. The stone floor of the kitchen gave way to the heavy carpeting of a room that looked like some sort of parlor. It was filled with furniture, an overstuffed sofa, a rocking chair, a stool, and the tallest, widest coffee table that Enessa had ever seen. She also noticed for the first time that one of the walls of the room seemed to be made entirely of wood. Several rows of bookshelves had been carved directly into it. Enessa ran her fingers over the volumes that were piled on the lowest shelf. There were books in Draconic, Elven, Common, Abyssal, and several languages that Enessa didn’t recognize. Suddenly, she heard a noise behind her.  
“Scales?”  
Enessa whipped around, only to see Spark wrapped in a blanket, blinking in the light cast by the feather in Enessa’s hand. Before Enessa could properly come up with an answer, Spark had thrown herself at her travelling companion, catching Enessa around the waist. Enessa felt her heart jump up into her throat. She glanced at Spark in confusion, unsure of what she had done to warrant this display of affection.  
“Um...Hi...Spark?!”  
Spark pulled away. There was a strange light in her eyes, and her voice shook as she began to speak.  
“You idiot, why did you lie to me?!”  
“What?!”  
“About your Ma.”  
Enessa’s wings immediately began to twitch. She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t seem to summon the firm tone that she had used to dismiss Spark’s suspicions earlier.  
“I—I—”  
“Aye, Scales, you don’t need to apologize—” Spark suddenly stopped herself. “Oy! I forgot. I know what your name is now. I can keep calling you Scales if you want, just let me know if you prefer Enessa, or something else.”  
Enessa’s heart fell further. This had to be some sort of nightmare. She clutched the bookshelf for support as her knees buckled.  
“Oy! Scales—I mean—whatever your name is!” Spark caught Enessa beneath her shoulders, and gently lowered her friend onto the floor. “You alright?”  
Enessa, who had finally gotten some of her bearings, jumped to her feet, spread her wings, and glared down at the Tabaxi with large, yellow eyes. “Get off me! You meddling little meatling—” She hissed.  
Spark held her paws over her face, her claws drawn. “Oy, Cheese N’ Crackers, Scales it is then! By the Fruit of Mitéra’s Womb...”  
Enessa stood her ground. She knew she didn’t have a forked tongue to flick back and forth, as her father, Lady Takah, and Otzu did. Her newly elongated fangs would have to do. Her wings could be used to provoke additional intimidation.  
“WHERE THE HELL AM I?! WHAT HAPPENED?! OPHION HELP ME, I’LL RIP YOUR BLOODY EARS OFF!” She hissed.  
Spark peaked out from behind her hands. To Enessa’s surprise, she looked more annoyed than frightened. “I took you to my friend, the one I said was a healer. His name’s Oloro. Big fella. He’s a Gladewatcher.”  
“And what is that?!” Enessa retorted.  
Spark shrugged. “I dunno, tree spirit I think? Anyway, he’s trying to fix your—”  
“Who told you about my mother?! And my name?!”  
Spark raised an eyebrow. “He—”  
Suddenly, A deep voice echoed from across the parlor. “What in the name of the Mystical Rose...”  
Enessa and Spark glanced up. Standing at the back of the parlor was the strangest creature Enessa had ever seen. He was just under 8 feet tall, with grey-blue skin, and a white beard.  
Enessa immediately seized one of the volumes and held it up, but something in the creature’s face stopped her. He didn’t seem threatened, or frightened, or even angry, only vaguely bemused.  
“Oloro?! Oh! Thank the Clowderdame!” Spark exclaimed, getting to her feet, and glancing warily at Enessa. “Scales, have you gotten that hissy fit out of your system?”  
Enessa, noting the rather insolent tone in the Tabaxi’s voice, let out one more hiss, ruefully lowered her wings, and let the book fall to the floor before turning to face the creature.  
“What do you want from me?” She asked, struggling to keep her voice steady.  
“Oh, nothing in particular. Only to answer any questions you may have.”  
Enessa couldn’t help but sneer incredulously.  
“Spark-In-The-Wilderness, would you mind giving us a moment? I apologize for taking over your bedroom like this.”  
Spark glanced at Enessa. Her face was neither annoyed, nor angry, but concerned.  
“Scales, I can stay if you’d like.”  
Enessa’s anger suddenly dissolved. She blinked at Spark in confusion. “I—What?”  
“The Daughter of Cats may stay if you so wish it,” Oloro responded.  
Enessa glanced between Spark and the giant. All of the anger and fear that had built up within her over the past few minutes was gone. In the silence that remained in its place, she suddenly realized that she hadn’t answered Spark’s question.  
The truth was that she found both the Giant’s calm, and the Tabaxi’s concern to be highly unsettling. But Spark’s reaction was probably the more illogical of the two. Oloro’s tranquility could reasonably be interpreted as an attempt to appear unruffled in the face of danger, and Enessa knew she could play that game just about as well as he could. Spark’s concern, however, she had no idea how to respond to. Divide and conquer, she thought to herself. She’d deal with the Monk first, and the Tabaxi later. “No. No thank you,” Enessa heard herself say. Spark slowly exited the room, and Enessa turned to face the giant Monk, her fists clenched, and the Cantrip of Ophion’s breath ready to be used in the event of an attack.  
Oloro gestured towards the sofa. “Would you like to sit down, Enessa?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, that was emotionally draining to write.  
In lighter news, guess who has two thumbs, chronic anxiety and knows how to PUT TEXT IN _ITALICS _ ON AO3?  
:D :D *points to self* _ THIS GAL DOES! _


	11. Goblet and Swords

_March 13, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa_  
“I’ll stand, thank you,” Enessa replied curtly, folding her wings tightly behind her.  
Oloro sat down slowly on the low-lying sofa, his large, bony knees rising up just under his ears. Under different circumstances, the sight might have been almost comical.  
“Are you afraid of me, Child?” He asked.  
Enessa raised an eyebrow. “No. I’m not.” This was a lie.  
The Monk didn’t seem to notice. “Are you feeling any better?”  
Enessa pressed her lips together, but said nothing.  
Oloro glanced at Enessa’s wings with large, grey eyes. “It must have been very painful for you.”  
“What?” Enessa retorted.  
“The pinioning of your wings. I have not seen the likes of such mutilation in years.” The Monk stroked his beard. “Even in the prisons of the republic, they merely clip the wing feathers of their prisoners. Your great-grandfather, Leokian Langmuir, believed that an elf’s wings were sacred, and did much to discourage practices such as this. His heart would break if he knew that something of this nature had been done to his only son’s grandchild.”  
Enessa rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t that painful,” she muttered. It was slowly becoming clear to her that the old giant posed absolutely no physical threat to her safety. He was merely an old, meddlesome meatling. Privately, Enessa thought to herself that she might have preferred the former to the latter.  
“You know, you need not keep standing against my bookshelf like that. No-one here is going to hurt you.”  
Enessa muttered something under her breath, and reluctantly sat down on the stool near the couch.  
“Would you like to take the sofa?”  
“I’m fine,” Enessa snapped. “How do you know about my mother?”  
Oloro smiled. “I’ve known the children of the House of Langmuir for over a thousand years. I met your great-grandfather, Leokian, when he was marching with the army of Aelen Gendry. The circumstances of our meeting were...less than ideal. I wouldn’t want to bore you with them—”  
“Tell me,” Enessa interrupted, curtly.  
The Monk looked vaguely surprised. “If you insist,” he murmured, and then took a breath to begin his story. “At the beginning of the Autumn Rebellion, The Ophionite known as the Godling Porthidio, became determined to purge the land surrounding his city of any sentient being who might be sympathetic to the elven armies that were coming from the south.” The Monk’s smile faded. “He burned this forest to the ground. Those who attempted to escape, the weak, the elderly, the women and children, were captured and offered to Ophion in sacrifice. The strong were slaughtered, and their bodies were used to mark the roads surrounding Porthidio’s city.” The Monk paused. He silently pulled a large medallion from the folds of his robe. It was made of black stone, and in the center, was carved a tree whose roots were twisted into the shape of an eye. “I was already an old man when this happened. I was a member of the Order of the Grand Protectress. I lived in the woods with my brother monks. We stayed away from other races because we feared that they might disturb our way of life. When the Revolution began, we remained silent. We thought that if we merely kept to ourselves, we would be spared, and if we were spared, so would the forest.” Oloro’s eyes once again fixed themselves on Enessa. “We were wrong.”  
Enessa sat awkwardly on her stool, unsure of how to respond. “What happened next?” she heard herself say.  
“I was the sole survivor of the last attack. I waited in the ruins of our monastery for the Ophionites to reunite me with my brothers. Then, after a week of hiding, I had a dream.” The Monk’s expression suddenly lifted. “I was visited by a lady, crowned with the sun and the planets. Her tears flowed into the night sky, and the blood on the ground bloomed into roses at her feet. I couldn’t tell what race she was, or where she was from, but when she called to me as if I were her child, I realized that I had met her many times before.”  
“The All-Mother?” Enessa, now feeling more intrigued than annoyed, had pulled her knees under her chin. The feather, still glowing from the light cantrip, sat on the table.  
“Yes,” Oloro replied. “She was our patroness, the guardian of the forest. We were her servants and sons. I knew, as soon as I saw her among the charred corpses of the trees, that I and my brothers had failed in our mission. By refusing to look at that which took place outside the forest, we had contributed to its destruction.” The Monk paused, and coughed softly into the sleeve of his robe. “I wanted to say something, anything. I wanted to ask for forgiveness, and yet I knew that all the forgiveness in the world would not absolve me or my brothers of our willful blindness.” The Monk began to run his fingers over the medallion that he had pulled from his tunic. “I was silent, but I could tell by the tears in her eyes that she understood my suffering. She held in each hand a gift, a Goblet, and a sword, which she offered to me. As soon as I took them, I knew that the Protectress had provided a way for me to absolve myself. That is when I awoke and realized that there were voices coming from outside of my hiding place.”  
Enessa raised an eyebrow. “Who were they?”  
The Monk gathered himself. “When I exited, I saw two young men standing at the head of an army. They were dressed in the colors of the Elven tribes. The elder one was fair of skin, with light eyes, and blue wings. The younger one was dark of hair and skin, with wings that were the color of the night sky. They were filthy, tired, and in desperate need of rest.” Oloro paused. “I do believe I must have frightened them rather badly at first, for I emerged from my hiding place not realizing that the sword and Goblet were still in my hands.”  
Enessa stared at Oloro with suspicion. It had taken the Monk over five minutes to even come close to divulging any pertinent or useful information. He must have been delusional or demented. “I thought you said those were given to you in a dream,” she muttered.  
“Aye, that I did. And yet there they were.” Oloro fell silent once more to cough into his sleeve before continuing. “I set the sword on the ground to assure them that I meant no harm. I then asked if there was any way I could be of service. At this point, several of the younger soldiers had realized that I was a Gladewatcher, and they lowered their swords. The blue-winged elf brought his comrade over to me. The two were young, just over 200 years old, and the dark-haired elf had been bitten by an Ophionite soldier. There was nothing I could do for him. Still, when he asked for water, I ran to the spring and filled the Goblet that had been given to me by the All-Mother. When I offered it to him, he drank, and was immediately restored. It was then that I discovered the powers of the Goblet. Your great-grandfather introduced himself to me as soon as he could stand again.”  
Enessa was now staring at the old Monk with wide, golden eyes. “So the Goblet brought him back from the dead?”  
The Monk shook his head. “Heavens, no. When one has passed from this valley of tears into the arms of the All-Mother, all the magic on earth will not bring them back. The Goblet only heals those who have not yet left the material plane.” Suddenly, the Monk was seized by a coughing fit.  
Enessa’s wings twitched with impatience. “Do you still have this Goblet?” She asked, dryly.  
Oloro nodded. “I gave it to your great-grandfather once the war was over. Your grandfather returned it to me 16 summers ago when—”  
“Why haven’t you used it to heal yourself?” Enessa interrupted.  
The Monk paused to let out a soft chuckle. “I am 2000 years old,” he answered with another small cough. “Soon, I will awaken in the arms of the All-Mother.”  
Enessa stared at the Monk with a mixture of confusion and outrage. “So you’re just giving up?” she asked.  
“I am giving up nothing. Every creature has its season, and mine approaches with a quickening pace.”  
“And you’re just going to let it happen?” Enessa hissed in disgust.  
Oloro stared at Enessa in confusion. “Have I said something to agitate you?” he asked.  
Enessa folded her arms. “You sound like someone I knew in the city of the Godling Krotalo,” she muttered, thinking of Lady Takah.  
The Monk raised his eyebrows in understanding. “Ah, you think I speak like a follower of the serpent god.”  
Enessa’s feathers bristled in disgust. “I think you speak like a cow that approaches the slaughterhouse with a smile.”  
The monk let out another soft laugh. “If the butcher is expecting to sell an old cow like me at the market for more than a few copper pieces, he’ll be sorely disappointed.” He gave a thoughtful smile. “Fortunately, I am not going to the slaughterhouse. My death will come neither a moment too late nor a moment too soon.” Oloro glanced at his withered hands. “I am beginning to see beyond the material plane. Soon I will be embraced by the All-Mother, and at the end of time I will look upon the face of the Creator when he returns. I will be reunited with my brother monks, and your great grandfather. The light will seep into the past like honey, and where there was once despair, there will be only peace.”  
“You’ll become food,” Enessa spat. “You’ll be absorbed into the blackness, and no-one will ever know or care that you ever lived. You won’t even be you anymore, you’ll be nothing. Does the thought of that excite you?”  
Oloro blinked. “My dear child, we are not stalks of barley, doomed to be cut down and eaten. We were sculpted by the creator, the Fruit of the All-Mother’s womb, before the world began. A bit of him exists in each of us. What sort of parent would let her children fall into the void?”  
The Gladewatcher’s large, brown eyes gazed into Enessa’s narrow, golden ones. Suddenly, Oloro’s gaze had shifted towards the kitchen door.  
“Daughter of Cats, you need not hover by the door like a hungry raccoon.”  
The door opened, revealing a very sheepish looking Spark. The Tabaxi had been crouching with her ear pressed against the wood of the door, eavesdropping for the second time in less than 24 hours.  
“If your curiosity remains unsatisfied, I would be more than happy to fill you in once the sun rises.” The Monk glanced towards Enessa, “With your friend’s permission, of course.”  
Spark glanced apologetically towards her friend. “I’m sorry Scales. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t go all hissy on anyone who didn’t deserve it. Are you feeling better?”  
Enessa’s cheeks burned as she removed her sleeve from her face. “I’m fine,” she responded. She didn’t know why, but the fact that Spark had been so undeterred by Enessa’s earlier outburst was strangely comforting.  
The Tabaxi cautiously sat down on the sofa, raising her eyebrows as she glanced over at the rickety stool Enessa was sitting on.  
“Oy, why’re you sitting on that wee stool there? Does that great serpent of yours not know what a couch is?” Spark quickly patted the spot next to her on the couch. “Aye, come sit.”  
Enessa blushed. Normally she would have refused to obey any order given by a meatling on principle, but she was tired, and the couch did look fairly comfortable. She rose from the stool and sat down next to Spark on the sofa. Immediately, the Tabaxi nuzzled the side of her face into Enessa’s shoulder. Suddenly, a rumbling sound emerged from Spark’s upper torso. Enessa nearly jumped out of her seat, and spread her wings in a panic.  
“Oy! You alright?!” Spark exclaimed as she sat up.  
“Did you make that sound?” Enessa asked.  
“Aye,” Spark answered. “It’s alright, I weren’t growling or nothing.” The Tabaxi quickly placed her head back on Enessa’s shoulder and yawned, “I’m just happy you’re awake n’ with us again. I missed you.”  
All of Enessa’s remaining fear, anger and hostility immediately dissolved for reasons that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She let her wings relax. But before she could think too much about Spark’s unsolicited display of affection, she heard someone or something tapping on the glass of the nearby window.  
Spark bolted upright. “OY! KOKKINO!”  
“I’ll let him in,” Oloro murmured, but Spark was already halfway to the window. A cold blast of air filled the room as Spark pulled the shutters open. When she returned to the sofa, a bright red bird was perched on her arm. Enessa stared at the creature in astonishment.  
“What is that thing?” She breathed.  
“It’s a Vermillion Eagle” Spark replied, scratching the bird’s neck lovingly. “This one here’s barely a juvenile. Dunno what possessed him to come north this early in the winter.”  
“Have you seen one before?” Enessa asked.  
“Aye, on an’ off. Didn’t really bother reading ‘bout ‘em until this fella came along. He showed up a few minutes after you fainted. Oloro lent me one of his books.”  
The bird squawked happily before shaking the last of the snow off of its wings. Spark gently guided it over to the headboard of the couch, where it perched, and continued to groom itself.  
Enessa rested her head on her hand as she continued to examine the bird. “What did you say his name was?”  
“Ah, Kokkino. I named him after this human kid I met in Fidiosí.” Spark glanced at the eagle lovingly. “He’s a good boy, always bringing me gifts an’ ev’rything.”  
Suddenly, the eagle lifted it’s head from under his wing, and immediately moved closer towards Spark.  
“Aye? Did you bring something for me then?” Spark asked, holding out her paw.  
Kokkino let out a small cough, and a shiny jade disc dropped into Spark’s open paw. Enessa’s heart immediately dropped into her stomach. The jade of the disc had been carved into the form of a serpent. Enessa had seen such pendants before. They were usually worn by soldiers in the Ophionite army.  
“Ah, well, speak of the serpent and he shall appear.”  
Enessa almost jumped out of her seat. She had forgotten that Oloro was still sitting at the other end of the sofa. The old Monk was now rubbing his hands, peering at the jade disc with large, brown eyes.  
“I thought I had sensed something this morning, but whomever was walking through the forest this morning had retreated back to the city by sundown.”  
Spark shot Oloro a look of concern. “Are they—?”  
“They are currently unable to make any meaningful progress. Ophionites do not do well in cold weather, such is the burden thrust on them by their lord.” the Monk’s eyes turned to Enessa. “All three of you must head south, to the city of Lunapoli. I will spend the rest of the night trying to see if there is anything that can be done about your wings, but if I make no further progress, then perhaps your grandfather will have some insight into how the problem may be solved—”  
“My grandfather?!” Enessa exclaimed.  
The Monk absently glanced over at the bookshelf, deep in thought. “I wrote him a letter this morning. The postmaster over at the fortress said it would arrive in Lunapoli in two days. I promised him 15 gold pieces extra if he could make it in a day and a half.”  
Enessa’s heart immediately dropped into her stomach. “What—How long was I asleep?” She stammered, glancing at Spark.  
“I got you here last night,” Spark replied. “Oloro’s been in an’ out of your room all day trying to figure out how to fix your wings—”  
Enessa’s eyes widened with a mixture of fear and anger. “Did you know he was going to do this when you brought me?!”  
Spark balked. “Write your grandpa? I mean—I didn’t know if you were actually Iangolor’s granddaughter. I told the fella in the cart who brought us here that you were cuz I thought it’d get him to shut up and stop asking questions. He told Oloro, but I’m damn near sure Oloro would’ve found out without his help.”  
Enessa jumped to her feet. The walls of the room around her seemed to spin. It was slowly dawning on her that she had stepped out of one trap and into another. Without thinking, she began to stagger to the door.  
“OY Scales! Where d’you think you’re going?” Spark exclaimed.  
Enessa suddenly felt a soft, fur covered paw on her arm, prompting her to whip around, fangs bared, and wings spread wide. “Don’t. Touch. Me,” She hissed. Spark jumped back as Kokkino swooped low over Enessa’s head with an angry squawk. Enessa reached out her hand to cast another poison spray cantrip, but before the words of the spell left her lips, Oloro’s soft, deep voice echoed from across the room.  
“Enessa Langmuir, Whatever you wish to do, I must ask you to not cast any combative spells while you remain within these walls.”  
Enessa stared at the Monk in shock. Oloro didn’t even flinch.  
“Pray, put your hand down. No-one here wishes you any harm.”  
Enessa shot him a defiant glare, gritting her fangs against tossing and turning in her stomach.  
The Monk’s face was still perfectly composed. “Do you think you could perhaps consider delaying your departure until tomorrow morning?”  
“You can’t make me go anywhere,” Enessa hissed, her voice shaking. She almost jumped out of her skin when she realized that the old monk looked almost bemused. His eyes were twinkling.  
“Who said I was going to make you go anywhere?” The Monk asked, gently.  
Enessa paused. “You said—”  
“I merely sent Iangolor a letter saying that you were alive and promising that I would advise you and your companion to go south to Lunapoli. What did you think I was going to do? Carry you to Langmuir’s Landing in a gunny-sack?”  
Enessa lowered her arm to her side. “Why tell him I was alive at all?”  
The Monk shrugged. “I made an oath to do so when the search for your mother came to a close. We knew she had been taken into the arms of the All-Mother when her spirit passed into the heavens, but we never saw yours do the same. I’ll admit that I was skeptical, when Iangolor told me that he believed you to still be alive, but stranger miracles have happened.” Oloro paused and smiled with a mixture of wonder and bemusement at the memory. “The world is vast. The forest is dark and hides many secrets. It is a beautiful thing.”  
Enessa’s curiosity finally got the better of her. She turned away from the door. “Why would he want to know I was alive?”  
The Monk was about to answer, but Spark beat him to it.  
“Cheese n’ Crackers, Scales, What the hell kinda question is that?!” The Tabaxi had finally lost her temper.  
“Daughter of Cats?” Oloro responded. “It’s late. We can discuss this in the morning. We should all be in bed.”  
Spark looked up at the Monk with a mixture of confusion and outrage, but said nothing. She turned quickly and stormed out through the kitchen door, Kokkino alighting from his new perch on the hat-stand to follow her with a squawk.  
Oloro turned back to Enessa. “Is there anything you would like to eat or drink before you retire? A cup of tea perhaps?”  
Enessa rubbed her arms, both of which were clammy and covered in goosebumps. “When I left—I was carrying a skin of medicine. I need to make more of it—”  
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Oloro interrupted, looking very grave. “I am happy to explain the reason for my refusal if you so wish to hear it, but as a Healer, my decision is final.”  
Enessa suddenly realized that her forehead was covered in sweat. She lifted the back of her hand to wipe it, but what she saw when she pulled it away almost made her heart stop. The sweat wasn’t like ordinary sweat. It was thick, black, and slightly viscous.  
“Enessa?” Oloro had stepped forward slightly. His expression had taken on an edge of concern.  
“What’s wrong with me?” Enessa asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.  
“Here, sit down,” The Monk responded. Enessa desperately wanted to push her way out the door, but she could hear the winter wind howling outside.  
If I’m going to die. I’d rather be poisoned than freeze, she thought to herself, before gritting her teeth and walking back over to the couch. She sat down stiffly, her hands in her lap. The Monk sat himself down on the other side of the couch deferentially.  
“You’ll have to forgive me for sitting down like this, but standing for long periods is very hard on my knees.” The Monk groaned, “Anyway, Before we put you to bed, I took some dried Tabernanthe from my pantry and brewed it into a potion. It counteracts the effects of the Drought of Ekhi.” Oloro paused, “now I must ask, how much of the Draught were you taking?”  
Enessa didn’t answer. Oloro seemed to sense her unease.  
“I’m not asking you this to hurt you, child. I swear. I made a vow to the All-Mother fifteen hundred years ago to treat the sick. I want to make you better, but I cannot if I don’t know the facts.” Oloro’s voice was still calm, but there was a slight edge of desperation in it.  
It suddenly occurred to Enessa that the Monk was also frightened, as most physicians are when treating ill patients. She pulled her knees back up to her chin and cast her eyes downward. “One cup in the morning, and one in the evening.” She replied. The sudden urge to hide her face was compounded as the Monk’s eyes widened into a look of barely concealed shock.  
“Did you dilute it?” He asked.  
Enessa shook her head. “I haven’t always taken that much. I started out with a teaspoon in a glass of water, but I needed more after I’d been taking it for a few years.” She glanced back up at the Monk, who was stroking his beard and looking very grave. “Is there something wrong?” She asked.  
“Years…” Oloro whispered, his voice trailing off. “How many years?”  
“Ten,” Enessa answered, “Since I was nine. I’m nineteen now.”  
“Ten years,” the Monk’s voice had softened into nearly a whisper. “By the fruit of Mitéra’s womb, by the Goblet and the Seven Swords of Sorrow…” his voice trailed off as he continued to stroke his beard. There was a strange light coming from his eyes that Enessa knew she’d seen before, although she wasn’t sure where.  
“Sir—is there anything else?” The urge to use reverence when addressing the Monk had become overwhelming.  
The Monk returned to himself immediately, and hastily blinked the strange shine out of his eyes. “Ah. No. Forgive me.” He paused. “I have never heard of nor have I seen anyone taking so much of that draught for so long.”  
Enessa wrinkled her nose in surprise. “Never? Why not?”  
“It is not often given to those who are long for this world,” the Monk answered. “The red flower from which the draught is derived was planted in the material plane by the Creator. Some say its seed came in the form of an echo from beyond the void.”  
“Beyond the void?” Enessa asked, raising an eyebrow.  
“Aye. From the country where Mitéra was born, and where the Creator walked among mortals. Behind the blackness, before this world began.” Oloro paused, “All that we do, all that we say, all that we are, none of it is new. The All-Mother and Creator exist outside of time. Elves may live the longest among us, but even their bodies become one with the earth, and their spirits fly freely among the stars.” The Monk let out a sigh. “But those are stories for another time.”  
Enessa hugged her knees closer to her chest. “How am I supposed to keep it from hurting?” She asked.  
“There are ways to treat it without the use of the draught. There is a salve that, when applied to the afflicted area, lessens the pain for a day or two. I prepared a bottle of it earlier this evening. Should you run out or forget to apply it, the consequences will not be as dire.” Oloro stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Speaking of consequences, the worst of your withdrawal appears to have passed. You’ll have a slight headache tomorrow, but there’s tea for that. When you wake up feeling as though you could eat a horse for breakfast, it will be a blessed sign indeed.” The Gladewatcher smiled. “Can I get you anything now?”  
Enessa shook her head. Oloro smiled, and rose from his seat on the sofa. He briefly paused before Enessa, to hold his giant, skillet-sized hand a few inches above her head. Enessa glanced up in confusion, only to realize that the Monk was murmuring what sounded like a prayer.  
Hail, Queen of Sky, Mother of Mountains, Bogmother, Spring of Eternal Life, Grand Protectress, Clowderdame, Lady of Wisdom, Mediatrix between heaven and earth, and Crusher of the False Serpent. To thee do we send up our hopes, our sighs, and our woes. Turn thine eyes upon us, as we walk through this valley of tears, that we may find refuge in your arms once our exile is over, and witness the return of the Creator.  
The Monk quietly withdrew his hand and opened his eyes.“May Mitéra keep you,” he said, before walking slowly towards the door to his room. Enessa watched him leave in silence, before she too rose from the sofa, and made her way towards the kitchen. As she walked through the door, she suddenly realized that Spark was sitting in one of the chairs, fiddling with a large medallion that Enessa had never seen before. It was made of wood, and onto it was carved the silhouette of a large cat, with twelve small kittens beneath her.  
“Um—The sofas free now, if you want it.”  
Spark answered without looking. “Thanks,” she muttered.  
Enessa raised an eyebrow. She immediately felt the urge to question the Tabaxi with similar curtness, but then she remembered how she had acted in the parlor, and she felt all the blood rush to her face.  
“S—Spark?” Enessa heard herself say.  
Spark looked up irritably. “What?” she growled.  
“Are you angry at me because of what happened in the parlor?”  
The Tabaxi’s face suddenly changed. There was an edge of sadness and desperation present in her anger, that made Enessa’s heart jump into her throat. “Why would you think that?”  
Enessa shrugged. “I—I wasn’t feeling well. I only meant to frighten you.” This was a lie, and a lie that Spark seemed to see through immediately.  
“You don’t need to lie to me about your intentions, Scales.” Spark answered, gravely. “An’ I’m not angry ‘bout that.”  
Enessa bit the inside of her cheek. “Then what?” She asked, trying not to sound frustrated.  
Spark looked back down at her medallion. “Why won’t you go south to your grandpa?”  
Silence filled the air between the two travelling companions. Enessa couldn’t believe what she had just heard.  
“Ex—Excuse me?” She stammered.  
“You heard me.” Spark answered.  
“Why on earth would he want to see me?” Enessa retorted. “And why should I want to see him? I’ve never met him. He’s nothing to me.”  
“That’s not a good enough reason. Just because you feel that way doesn’t mean he does. Oloro told you about the letter.”  
Enessa’s feathers bristled. “It doesn’t matter how he feels. Why are you so keen to get rid of me all of a sudden?”  
Spark sat up in her chair. Kokkino, who had been perched on the table, let out a low hiss at Enessa. “I never said I wanted to get rid of you. If you were to go to Lunapoli, I’d join you. I just don’t understand why you aren’t.”  
Enessa gave a sarcastic shrug. “What do you want me to say?! It’s the truth! I don’t want to meet him. I don’t owe him anything.”  
“You’re his bloody granddaughter. You’ve been missing for 18 years. At the very least he’ll want to know you’re alive, and meet you—”  
“The fact that he’s my father’s mother means absolutely nothing,” Enessa hissed. “My being related to him might as well have been an accident. I didn’t ask him to be anything to me—”  
“Well he didn’t ask to lose a daughter an’ granddaughter, in one night!” Spark retorted.  
Enessa suddenly realized that the Tabaxi’s paws were shaking. She lowered her wings.  
“Why do you care?” She asked.  
Silence filled the air once again. Spark sat back down in her seat, wiping her nose on her sleeve.  
“Before I left home, my Ma had a litter of four kittens.” Spark glared up at Enessa. “There were s’posed to be six, but two of ‘em were dead when they came out. We didn’t think anything else would go wrong with the other four, but by the end of the month, only one was still alive. We named her Flame-of-the-Spirit. She lived for 10 years.” Spark paused to glance down at the floor. “She died a little bit after my Pa.”  
Enessa was completely at a loss. She wanted to ask what this story had to do with her grandfather, but the Tabaxi’s display of emotion had shocked her into silence.  
“After she died, Ma didn’t talk for two days. Folks said she was in shock or something. When she did talk, it was only to me. You know what she said?”  
Enessa didn’t answer, she figured that the question was rhetorical.  
“She told me how strange she always thought it was, that there are words for things like widows, an’ orphans an’ such. But there’s no word for a parent losing a child.” he Silence that followed the end of Spark’s sentence was deafening. Enessa felt herself open and close her mouth several times, but her mind had gone blank.  
“Look, I never been to school or nothing. There’s a lot o’ things I don’t know. But I know this, if your grandpa loved your mother the way my Ma loved Flame, you refusing to see him like this isn’t just cowardly, it’s bloody heartless.”  
Enessa’s heart fell into her stomach like a stone. Spark, suddenly realizing the extent of what she had said, looked completely shamefaced.  
“Good night, Scales,” she muttered, before hurrying back to the parlor. Kokkino flew after her, barely making it through the kitchen door before it closed.  
Enessa shuffled back to her room in a state of shock, and collapsed onto her bed. When she lifted her face from her pillow, she realized that it was wet with tears. Before she could feel too disgusted with such a display of emotional weakness, the memory of Otzu’s sobs, Oloro’s tears, and the muteness of Spark’s mother floated back to the front of her mind, and she re-buried her face in the pillow and cried herself to sleep.


	12. The Shortening of Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Death mention, also ANGST.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...my senior semester got cancelled, so I'm gonna start updating this again. Also I realized that last time I updated I uploaded the wrong chapter :P So here's the one that was supposed to be uploaded. Hope everyone's staying safe in these trying times and WASHING THEIR FUCKING HANDS!

_ March 14, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa _

As was usual in winter, Oloro was up and out of bed before the sun had begun to peak over the horizon. The old Monk rose, dressed himself in the same, tyrian-purple habit he had worn for more than a millenia, and immediately went outside to splash some water on his face from the ice-cold stream. While surveying the snow-covered surroundings of the cottage, Oloro’s eyes drifted over towards a small wooden shack that was situated immediately adjacent to his hut. A version of this structure had been built, renovated and rebuilt many times since Oloro had moved into his house over a thousand years ago. It was a bathhouse, built in the style of those which were popularly used among those who lived in Lernayin Province, be they Kavalí, Dealurian, Human, or Caelian Elf. Oloro himself barely used the structure. He bathed twice a week in the nearby river, provided that the ice wasn’t too thick to render bathing impractical. Inhabiting spaces constructed from the corpses of dead trees had always made him uneasy, and besides, Gladewatchers, tied as they were to the forest, rarely minded cold baths. Nevertheless, as a healer, Oloro had always maintained buildings such as this one for the sake of those he cared for. Mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters from all over the forest had come to Oloro’s hovel in the hope that they could use the bathouse to treat the ailments of their loved ones. 

“Given that the Child of Scales and Feathers and the Daughter of Cats will most likely be leaving today, they might as well make use of it.” Oloro murmured to himself. Of course the odds that Spark, nomadic steppe-dwelling cat that she was, would agree to even set foot near the house were shaky at best. But given that the ordinary methods that the Tabaxi employed when cleaning themselves were both inconvenient and somewhat distasteful, Oloro decided that he might as well put forth the idea as a suggestion. He picked up a metal bucket that hung by the door, walked over to the shack, and gently opened the door. He briefly surveyed the interior of the structure, and then set to work. By the time the structure had been swept, heated with a coal-burning stove, and stocked with a bucket of water, a ladle, and a dried branch of eucalyptus, the sun was already beginning to rise. The snow on the roof of the structure had all but melted away, and thick clouds of steam were now rising from it. Oloro smiled, wiped the droplets of steam from his forehead, and re-entered the house. The parlor sofa was deserted, and Spark was dressed, and sitting by the window, playing with a piece of string. Kokkino sat nearby, his head tucked beneath his wing. 

The old Monk’s entrance into the parlor prompted the Tabaxi to look away from the string she was playing with. 

Oloro smiled as she glanced up. “Pray, do not let me interrupt you.”

Spark glanced dejectedly down at the floor and shrugged. “‘S fine,” she murmured. 

The Monk quietly took a pen and a sheet of blotting paper from the bookshelf, and leaned against the wall to write a note. The pen was around the size of a child’s forearm, while the paper was the size of an open encyclopedia. 

“What’re you writing?” Spark piped up. 

“Oh, I decided to fire up the bathhouse. I thought you and Enessa might want to utilize it before you leave. I was about to go wake her to tell her how to use it, but I think these instructions should suffice.”

The Tabaxi wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I’m not a bloody human. I know how to bathe myself without makin’ things all fancy-like.”

Oloro looked up in bemusement. “So you have told me. But when was the last time you took the time to do it?”

Spark’s ears flattened against her skull. “Cheese n’ Crackers. You’d think I was a wee kitten of a lass from the way you’re talking!” 

Oloro finished writing the instructions on the paper, and quietly entered the kitchen to slide the note beneath the door to Enessa’s room. When he returned to the parlor, he found Spark lying on her back, her eyes closed. The Monk suddenly noticed that the fur around the Tabaxi’s eyes had been matted and stained with tears. 

“My dear child, are you quite sure you are well?” 

Spark opened her eyes and sat up. “I’m not sick,” she muttered, “Just went to bed angry. That’s all.”

Oloro sidled over to the young ranger and, causing the floorboards to creak beneath him, knelt beside her. “Might I ask why?”

Spark looked down and folded her arms. “How could she be so selfish like that?”

“Who? Enessa Langmuir? How do you mean?” 

“Refusing to go to her grandpa’s like that, for no reason. Hasn’t the old man been through enough without her treating him like he’s got the plague or something?”

Oloro stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Well, selfishness is hardly the most uncommon of sins,” he replied. “And think on this. You saw her wings. Do you think being raised by a father, one who would do so much to physically mutilate his child, is conducive to the development of filial piety?” 

Spark quietly situated herself more comfortably on her heels. If her legs had been a little longer, she might have crossed them, or drawn her knees up to her chin. However they were far too similar to the legs of the cats that live in our world to facilitate such an action. 

“Why would she think her mother’s family would do the same?” 

“What reason have they given her to believe that they will not?”

Spark glared at the Monk in frustration. “What d’you mean?” 

Oloro smiled thoughtfully. “It is no ordinary act to place one’s trust in the hands of those one has never met. It is a difficult thing, even for the best of us—”

“ _ I _ did it,” Spark interrupted, curtly. “Back when I met her.  _ I _ did, and she’s not even related to me.” 

Oloro sighed. “You are most fortunate, Daughter of Cats. I know that your life has not been easy, but I remember you telling me that even when your father and sister died, and your mother fell silent, there was never one moment, not one, where you felt unloved by those around you. I know you are young, and that you have just begun your walk through this vale of tears, but there are many who have walked fewer miles than you who cannot say the same.” The Monk paused and looked hard at the young Tabaxi. “When you chose to leave home, and begin your period of wandering the earth as a novice of the Clowderdame, do you remember the prayer you were taught?”

Spark nodded, “Aye. the one about walking quickly?”

“That and other things,” Oloro corrected, “ _ May my pace be as swift as the river, my steps as unswerving as the morningstar, my heart as open as the summer sky, my spirit as buoyant as the windswept clouds, and my patience as infinite as the void above _ .”

Spark nodded sheepishly. “Is this the part where you tell me when and how I fucked it all up?”

“Not necessarily. I think the way you’ve behaved over the course of the past two days towards our guest has been exemplary. My only complaint is that I think you have misidentified what it is that she needs from you.” 

“What?” 

Oloro stroked his beard thoughtfully. “After the formation of the Republic, when I was a younger, more foolish sapling, I traveled with six companions to face the spirit known as Akroatis. He is a most wretched being, forced to live at the edge of the material plane, listening to echoes from other worlds. We were told by Mitéra to go for him for advice, that some secrets from the world where the Creator walked among mortals might be revealed to us.” The Monk paused to let out a soft cough before continuing. “Among that which he chose to reveal to us was an old poem, written by a dying bard with an eye towards heaven.”

“What did it say?” Spark asked. 

“It was written in a lost language, but the translation of its last line was as follows: ‘ _ fellow monsters while we are still here, for one minute, think/about this: there is someone right now who is looking/to you, not Him, for whatever/love still exists.’ _ The Monk’s face grew very solemn. “Iangolor Langmuir, Ravalee, all the members of that family who might reach out a hand to steer this young woman towards her destiny, they are not yet here. The dream is not over, and the night is dark and desolate. All that is destined to be done will be done through the work of the All-Mother, but it will take time.” 

“So what am I supposed to do?” Spark interrupted with impatience. “Let her wander all o’er the woods by herself and hide between the trees like a coward?”

“You are required to make sure that, if she chooses to wander the woods and hide from her destiny, that she will not do it alone. While she still sleeps, you must keep watch, as you have done for the past two days. Your pace as swift as the river, your steps as unswerving as the morningstar, your heart as open as the summer sky, your spirit as buoyant as the windswept clouds, and your patience as infinite as the void above.”

Spark glanced down at the kitchen floor, scratching her ear. “It’s not fair,” she muttered. 

“It is by no means a permanent arrangement. Soon the dawn will be upon us, and the nightmare will have ended. The final act of this sad drama is coming to a close.” 

Spark sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. “D’you mean the Creator’s coming back?”

“Perhaps,” Oloro answered with a smile.

Spark grabbed her ears in a panic. “Cheese n’ Crackers—I’m not ready—!”

“My dear Daughter of Cats,” Oloro chuckled fondly, “the Creator does not simply wait until his creations are ready before returning, any more than a blacksmith waits for his tools to polish themselves before he decides to use them again.”

Spark glanced nervously around the parlor, her ears flattened against her skull. “Is there a timeline for this?” she murmured. 

“Perhaps, though I doubt it is one that we have the eyes to see.” The Old Monk coughed into his elbow, “I will be in the All-Mother’s arms before all this truly comes to pass.” 

Spark’s face suddenly fell. “Say what now?” 

Oloro lowered his arm and smiled, somewhat sadly. “I do hope that you didn’t think I was going to live forever, dear heart.”

“N-no— ‘course not, but...what makes you think it’ll happen now?”

The old monk sighed, and glanced down at his fingerless gloves, took the edge of one between his fingers, and rolled it back to reveal his palm. Spark’s eyes widened in a mixture of shock and horror. Growing out of a deep wound on the Monk’s hand, was the sprig of a rose bush, thorns and all. The blossoms had not yet opened, and the plant itself hadn’t been negatively affected at all after being covered by the cloth of the glove. 

“Tha—That’s not supposed to happen...is it?” Spark stammered, wrinkling her nose slightly. 

Oloro smiled, “I saw them in my dreams before they began to grow in earnest. It is true that we gladewatchers become one with the forest when we die, but I’d never encountered anything of this nature before a few days ago.”

Spark winced, “Looks painful.”

“It is, somewhat. But not too serious.”

Spark was about to answer, when suddenly, the parlor door opened. 

“H-Hello?” 

Enessa was wrapped in a blanket, but her hair was wet and plastered to her forehead, and her wings trembled from the cold. She had woken up to find Oloro’s instructions on how to use the bath house under her door. She’d happily spent at least an hour in the small shack, preening her feathers with a twig she’d picked up outside, before finally working up the courage to tie back her hair, and walk back to the house. 

“By the Clowderdame! What happened?!” Spark exclaimed, her voice sounding like something between a cry and a meow. 

“O-Oloro offered m-me a chance to use t-the b-bath house.” Enessa stammered, coming in to stand in front of the fire. 

“Crikey, you didn’t have to say yes!” Spark exclaimed. 

Enessa’s color deepened, but she said nothing. 

“Are you feeling quite better?” Oloro asked, gently. 

Enessa nodded. “Do you know where my clothes are?”

“I’ll get them,” the old monk volunteered. “I was able to fix your tunic and cloak after you first came. I also have some medicine to give you.”

“Thanks–” Enessa replied, but before she could ask to come with him, Oloro had exited the parlor through his bedroom door, leaving her alone with Spark.

Spark sheepishly rose to her feet. “Hey...so...where’re you headed?” 

“South,” Enessa answered, “Not to...Lunapoli...or wherever that place was. Just where it’s warmer.” She glanced out the window nervously, “I want to get as far away from this forest as possible, then regroup once I get to a climate that’s more—” She sneezed, “–suitable.” 

Spark nodded, “I can help you with that.” 

Enessa’s eyes widened in surprise. “Y-you want to come?”

“Aye, of course! I’m not gonna let you tramp all over the Gorgonic forest by yourself! ‘Sides,” Spark grinned, “Kokkino an’ I took you on last night. I’m pretty sure I can take on a lotta snake-men as well.” 

Kokkino let out an uneasy chirp. 

“I–are you sure?” Enessa asked. 

“Absolutely. You’re not getting rid of me that easy,” Spark rejoined, nervously scratching behind her ears. “Sorry for being a git last night. I weren’t in a good place. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Enessa heard herself say without hesitation. She knew she ought to make the Tabaxi work a little harder for forgiveness, but she was so relieved that Spark was no longer angry with her that she couldn’t find it within herself to be cold. 

The door to Oloro’s bedroom reopened, and the Monk exited. Enessa’s messenger bag, along with her newly mended tunic and cloak, were slung over his arm. “Both of you must be hungry. I’ll put some porridge on the stove. Spark-In-The-Wilderness, before you two go, feel free to go through the pantry to take what you need.” Oloro quickly set the clothes down on the sofa. His steps seemed slightly heavier than they had before. Kokkino let out a nervous squawk. 

“Oy, Oloro, are you well?” Spark asked. 

Oloro nodded, “There is much to do. The stars have begun to grow clearer.” He absently lifted his hand, and Spark realized with horror that something seemed to be pushing at the cloth.

“Is there something under there?” Enessa asked. 

Oloro didn’t seem to hear her. His face looked very grave. “Child of Scales and Feathers, Once you’ve dressed, I’d like you and Spark to join me in the kitchen.” The Monk then let out a loud cough, and quickly shuffled towards the kitchen. Soon, he had made his exit, and the two travelling companions were alone again. 

“Is there something wrong with him?” Enessa murmured, nervously. 

Spark bit her lip nervously. “Don’t worry about it. You should get dressed.” 

Enessa quickly dropped her blanket and pulled on her tunic and trousers. Her muscles still ached, but the time she’d spent in the bath house had left her feeling completely revitalized. She’d thought that she was done sweating out all of the thick, black, mucus that the drought had left behind but when she’d been in the sauna for a few minutes, it began to flow anew. It had all been strangely satisfying, melting the snow into steaming water and rinsing everything off. Enessa’s scales had even begun to molt and peel off, as they usually did after an illness. Even walking through the snow back to the house had been unexpectedly pleasant. Everything felt fresh, cold, clean, and bright. Suddenly, a question occurred to her. 

“So...where are we going?” Enessa asked. 

Spark reached into her backpack, which was sitting next to the couch, and pulled out a yellowed scroll. “I dunno. I was thinking we could head to Tyrfipoli. I know some folks there.”

Enessa peered over the Tabaxi’s shoulder. She had examined maps of the Ophionite Empire before, and knew the geography well. 

“Where is that?”

Spark pointed at a small, brown dot on the map, then traced her finger down what looked like a river to patch of parchment that had been painted dark green.

Enessa raised an eyebrow as she caught sight of the patch, “That’s Oala Province. There’s nothing there. Just...swamp meatlings.” 

“You mean the Mochvara?” Spark responded. “Aye, they’re alright. Tyrfipoli is on the border between Stepa and Telma.”

“Hestoi and Oala,” Enessa murmured to herself. 

“Bless you.” Spark replied dryly.

“What?”

“Didn’t you sneeze again?”

Enessa pursed her lips. “Those were their names when we were in power.” 

Spark let out a laugh. “Mitéra have mercy! Ye didn’t think we were gonna keep those, did ye?”

“I don’t see why not,” Enessa replied coolly. 

“HHHHWWEEELLLLLCCCCOOOOMMME TO HHHESSSSSTTTOOOIII!” Spark hissed, imitating an Ophionite accent. “Who’d wanna live in a place called ‘Hestoi?’”

Enessa was less than amused. “It’s not as though anyone ever complained to us about the name.”

Spark snorted. “Aye, cuz ye snakes are so approachable. Warm an’ fuzzy like wee rabbits, all of ye.” 

“Let’s focus on the map,” Enessa muttered. 

“Killjoy,” Spark murmured. There was a slight note of fondness in her voice. “Anyway, Tyrfipoli is right here. I don’t think it’s got a hissy name. It weren’t built until after the end of the war.” 

Enessa wrinkled her nose. She had heard stories about that part of the empire. “Why would anyone build something there?”

“It’s not a bad city. They got a river, good food, an’ they get a lotta visitors who wanna visit the Corcra.”

“The what?”

“It’s the shrine that the Mochvara made to Mitéra. Passes through the city once a year durin’ spring. It’s a real treat.” 

“Is it warm?” Enessa asked cautiously. 

Spark’s eyes lit up with mirth. “Compared to Lernayin it’s a bloody tropical paradise. Not as nice as it gets further south, but still.”

Enessa raised an eyebrow. “Why  _ aren’t _ we going further south?”

“Elves,” Spark murmured offhand. “The only reason we’d have to go south was if you wanted to head to Lunapoli.”

“That can’t be the only city in the south!” Enessa retorted.

“It’s not,” Spark replied as she continued to examine the map. “But if I remember correctly, the other elves weren’t ever too fond of the fact that your mother decided to keep you, an’ when she disappeared—” Spark shook her head. “—I’m just saying, I dunno how they’d respond to you if they ain’t your kin. An’ even if they were, Elves can be strange bastards sometimes.”

Enessa bit her lip and glanced back at the map. “Alright, Tyrfipoli it is.” 

Kokkino let out an excited chirp as Spark re-rolled the map into a tight scroll. 

“Excellent. Now let’s get breakfast.” 

When the two travellers, along with Kokkino, entered the kitchen, Oloro was placing a large bowl of porridge on the table. A large jug had been placed alongside it. 

“Oy...is that what I think it is?” Spark asked, her eyes going wide. 

Oloro simply smiled. Enessa wanted to ask what was going on, but before she could, Spark let out a loud whoop. 

“BLOODY WICKED! Did you harvest it in the spring?”

Oloro was gently easing himself onto the stone bench that sat alongside the table. “I actually received this as a gift from the farmer who brought you here, Baryam Parsamian. He came to me with a lame horse earlier in the summer, and gave me this as payment.”

Enessa raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t he give you any money?” 

Oloro shrugged. “Others do, but food, herbs, kindling, and pelts are far more useful to me.” 

Enessa sat down cautiously next to Spark, who was already reaching for the porridge. “So which of those is this?”

“It’s Honey,” Spark replied, depositing several helpings of porridge into Enessa’s bowl. Once she’d served herself, she hoisted the bowl back on the table and reached for the jug to unscrew it. “Don’t you have it underground?”

Enessa shook her head, wrinkling her nose slightly as she watched the viscous, golden liquid pour into her porridge from the newly opened jug. Kokkino alighted onto the floor, and began to preen his feathers. 

“Daughter of Cats, beware—”

“Aye, calm yer branches tree-beard. Scales, jus’ say when you don’t want anymore.”

“Um—That’s enough,” Enessa responded. Spark removed the jug immediately. A small, golden-brown pool of syrup was now sitting in the middle of Enessa’s porridge. Enessa sniffed it. The smell was sweet, strong, and strangely fragrant.

“Well, are you gonna stir it in?” Spark piped up as she filled the other half of her bowl with the golden liquid.

Enessa took her spoon, stirred the concoction, and began to lift a spoonful to her lips. Spark, Oloro, and even Kokkino were all watching. Enessa put the spoon down and shot them all a withering glance. 

“Well, I hope that this morning’s entertainment lives up to your satisfaction.” 

“Crikey woman, eat the damn porridge!” Spark laughed. 

Oloro chuckled, and began to fill his own bowl. 

Enessa rolled her eyes and took a sip of porridge from her spoon. As soon as she did, her mind went completely blank. The porridge didn’t taste like porridge anymore. It was sweet, crisp, succulent, and ever so slightly sharp. 

“Oy, Scales. You alright?” 

Enessa nodded, and began to quickly stuff spoonfuls of the porridge into her mouth. 

The rest of the meal was conducted in silence. At the end of it, Spark lifted her bowl to her mouth to lick it clean. Enessa’s sense of pride was the only thing holding her back from doing the same. Oloro rose from his seat, his movements slightly more labored than they had been a few moments earlier. 

“So, have you two decided on a specific destination?” the Monk asked. 

Spark nodded. “Aye. We’re headed to Tyrfipoli. Should take us about 3 weeks if the weather holds up.”

Oloro raised an eyebrow. “Straight from here to Tyrfipoli?” 

Spark wrinkled her nose, “Oh hell no! We’ll probably stop in Tigrin on the way for supplies.” 

Oloro nodded in approval. “I have several items I’d like to present to you before you leave.” 

Spark’s face broke out into a sticky grin. “Aye?”

Oloro nodded. Enessa suddenly noticed that there were several bundles of furs sitting next to him on the stone bench. The Monk shot a sheepish glance at Spark.

“Spark-In-The-Wilderness, would you mind—?”

Spark had already begun clearing the breakfast things off the table before the Monk had finished his sentence. Soon, the stone table was completely bare. The Monk took the smallest of the three bundles and set it down in front of the tabaxi. 

“Daughter of Cats,” he murmured. 

Spark took the bundle in her paws and sniffed it, before beginning to unwrap the parcel. 

Meanwhile, Oloro lifted the remaining two packages and set them down in front of Enessa. 

“Daughter of Scales and Feathers.” 

Enessa was about to begin unwrapping her own parcels when something metallic flashed out of the corner of her eye. Kokkino let out a loud, confused squawk. The furs surrounding Spark’s parcel had fallen away to reveal a Goblet, delicately crafted out of silver. Beautiful, detailed illustrations of roses, stars, cats, mountains, and flowers had been engraved onto the metal. Enessa knew what the item was immediately, even though she had never seen it before. 

Spark’s expression fell immediately. “It’s—by the Clowderdame—Oloro, why?”

“Do you know how to use it?” Oloro asked calmly. 

“I—I think so. You just fill it up an’ drink from it...right?” Spark looked up at the Old Monk in confusion. “I can’t take care of this. It’s a holy relic. It belongs in a temple.” 

Oloro smiled warmly and shook his head. “I would be doing it’s creator a great disservice if I were to hide it from the world any longer.” He suddenly turned towards Enessa. 

“Enessa Langmuir?”

Enessa glanced down at the larger of the two parcels sitting before her. Cautiously, already half knowing and dreading whatever was contained within it, she began to unwrap the furs, which fell away to reveal a sword. The weapon was long, with a curved blade, and a grip embossed with stars. The scabbard was decorated with stars, roses, and characters that Enessa didn’t recognize. The pommel was shaped like the bud of a rose. Enessa cautiously lifted the weapon. It was surprisingly heavy, and she could tell almost immediately that it would be a nightmare to carry. 

“How does it feel?” Oloro asked. 

Enessa pressed her lips together, “I don’t know how to use it.”

“Easy, you take it, stick in someone, and boom! Done! You’ll get the specifics down later,” Spark replied gleefully. 

Oloro looked slightly bemused. “Setting aside the lack of detail in Spark-In-The-Wilderness’ description, I sense that you need not wait long for instruction.”

Spark looked up at the Monk in confusion. “Why the hell are you giving us these? We’re not clerics.”

Oloro’s face suddenly became very serious. “I’ve held onto these for over a thousand years of peace and prosperity for the people of this land. Now those years of peace and prosperity are coming to a close.” The Monk shot a warm glance at Enessa. “As a great Poet once wrote: _In blood-soaked soil, a fragrant rose shall grow/And seven swords of sorrow shall we wield—”_

“_That when the summer giveth way to snow/Our enemies shall scatter far afield,_” Spark interrupted, glancing nervously down at the Goblet. 

Oloro nodded in approval, and glanced down at the remaining package he had handed to Enessa. “Once you open the last parcel you will find a bottle of the salve I made yesterday. You must apply it to the tips of your wings as soon as you are out of the forest.” 

Enessa grabbed the remaining parcel, stuffing it into her messenger bag. 

The Monk suddenly drew a piece of blue, chalky stone from within his robes. “Now, both of you must make haste. The Ophionites have been searching the forest for two days. They are cold, lost, and slow of foot, but their resolve is strong, and they are making steady progress.” The Monk suddenly coughed and held up the stone. “I have here some chalk needed to draw a circle of teleportation. Spark-In-The-Wilderness, know you of any permanently cast circles close to the river Laydon?”

Spark nodded and quickly withdrew a small, beaten up booklet from her bag and flipped through it, muttering to herself. 

“Ah! There ‘tis. There’s one at the shrine to the Mother of the Unwalked Path. It’s right next to the river. We can just walk down stream from there. We should be in Tyrfipoli in two weeks.”

Oloro pressed his lips together. “It would take half that time if you were to take a boat. Perhaps—”

“HA! Not a chance. The creator was nice enough to give us legs. There’s nothing wrong with using ‘em.” 

Enessa suddenly remembered what the Monk had told her the night before. “Have you anywhere to go?” She asked. “What will you do when the soldiers get here?”

Oloro smiled, and peeled back his fingerless gloves. The rosebud which bloomed from his palm sprang back up, completely unaffected by the pressure of the glove. Blood red petals were beginning to peek through the green shell of the plumule. “When they come, this house will be empty.”

Enessa felt her heart sink like a stone. She helplessly glanced at Spark, but the Tabaxi’s eyes were fixed on the Goblet, and she looked very grave. 

“You don’t want either of us to stay with you? Until it’s over?” Spark asked, visibly struggling to keep her voice steady. 

Oloro shook his head with a warm smile “No, dear heart. You two must leave as soon as possible.” The Monk glanced up at Enessa, who was still at a loss for words. “Do not be sad for me, either of you. If the All-Mother wills it, I will see you again very soon. This need not be a temporary parting.”

Kokkino suddenly let out a nervous chirp. Enessa glared at him in frustration.

Oloro sighed. “He senses the presence of servants of the Serpent God. They are not yet near enough to see us, but their distance from us lessens even now.” The Monk removed the last of the two gloves, revealing another rosebud, which had just begun to flower, and looked back up at the two travellers. “Go forth, and be well, both of you.”

Spark nodded, cradling the Goblet in her hands. “You too. May you find rest at the bosom of the Clowderdame. Scales?” 

Enessa took a deep breath inward and shot one last glance back at Oloro. “I’m coming,” she replied. She then picked up the sword and fastened it around her waist. The heaviness was almost unbearable, but she gritted her teeth, determined to make the best of it as she walked out of the kitchen towards the parlor. Oloro looked on, smiling slightly and raising his hand in a blessing, as the two travellers finally exited the kitchen. 

As Enessa followed Spark into the parlor, the Tabaxi was already crouching on the wood-paneled floor, a piece of the enchanted chalk in her hand. Glancing periodically at the booklet she had taken from her bag, she drew a wide circle, and scrawled some unfamiliar characters along the edge. The Goblet sat outside of the circle, illuminated by the sunlight coming through the window. 

Enessa approached the circle to look at the booklet that was now lying on the floor. Spark didn’t look up. 

“What is this?” Enessa asked, crouching down. 

“It’s a Guide to Teleportation circles established by the Order of the Goblet,” Spark answered without looking up. 

Enessa looked up in confusion. “Who’re they?”

“Clerics. They run most of the temples in the Republic. They’re alright, little bit boring. I guess that’s what happens when you stay in one place for that long—” Spark’s voice suddenly broke off. 

Enessa felt her feathers bristle. She didn’t know how to respond to this sudden display of emotion on the part of the Tabaxi. 

“A—are you ill?” Enessa asked. 

Spark shook her head. “Nah. Jus’ sad,” she replied, glancing back up at Enessa. “How ‘bout you?”

Enessa looked nervously at the parlor door, folding her wings tightly behind her. “It doesn’t matter.”

Spark’s ears twitched slightly. “‘Course it does.”

Enessa unfolded and re-folded her wings. “I don’t want to keep us here longer than we have to. It wouldn’t be prudent.” 

Spark let out a snort and rolled her eyes. “Oh, Scales,” she murmured. She drew the last sigil in the circle, and stepped back. The marks suddenly began to glow. The wood-paneling inside the circle took on a strange sort of shimmer, like the surface of a pool. Kokkino, who had been grooming himself on the floor, flew over to alight on Spark’s shoulder, knocking the Goblet over in the process. 

“Oy! Thanks Kino,” Spark exclaimed, picking the Goblet up and stuffing it into her bag. The eagles squawked amicably. 

Enessa bit her lip. “Do I just...step into it...or—?”

“Aye. I mean, I prefer jumping, but that’s jus’ me,” Spark replied, offering a fur-covered forepaw to her companion. “It’s alright. We’ll be right here with you. You can hold my arm if you’d like.”

Enessa hesitated for a brief moment, before reluctantly taking Spark’s paw in her hand. 

“Alright, On three. One. Two.”

Enessa inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, bracing herself for the jump.

“Three.”

The two travellers jumped, while Kokkino alighted from Spark’s shoulder and flew into the circle. The first thing Enessa felt once she had jumped was a rush of winter air, and the sound of a river. 

“Oy, Scales? You can open your eyes now.” 

Enessa blinked several times, her eyes adjusting to the bright sunlight filtering through the air. She and Spark were standing on a large stone platform. Behind them was a small, stone gazebo with a domed roof.

“Is that—?”

“The Shrine? Yea. Pretty, innit?”

Enessa’s hip was beginning to ache horribly from the weight of the sword. She was completely ashamed of herself. Their journey had barely begun, and already she wanted to sit down. 

“Scales, you alright?” 

Enessa folded her feathers together tightly. “I—it’s nothing. This sword is just—it’s very heavy. I can handle it.” 

Spark raised an eyebrow. “Can I see?” She asked. “You don’t have to take it out. Just give me the belt.”

Enessa reluctantly unbuckled the belt, and handed the sword to Spark. “Please be careful, it’s—”

Spark had already taken the sword. She lifted it to her nose, sniffed it, and quickly fastened it around her waist.

“I’ll carry it. You snake people don’t do well in cold. This is gonna be a pretty long walk, an’ the comfier you are, the easier it’ll be.” 

Enessa felt her face grow warm. Her feathers bristled in embarrassment. The Tabaxi seemed completely unfazed by the weight of the weapon. It was almost as though she was carrying a toy. In any other circumstance, Enessa’s shame would have bordered on anger. Luckily, she knew Spark well enough to see that such a response would be completely unwarranted.

“Thank you. I’m sorry about this.” Enessa responded. 

Spark’s large, blue eyes twinkled with mirth. “Don’t get your feathers in a twist. It’s alright. Let’s get going.” 

The two travellers stepped off of the shrine’s platform, and began to make their way south along the swiftly flowing Leydon river. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem written by the "dying bard with an eye towards heaven" is The Hawk by Franz Wright. Here is the full poem.
> 
> Maybe in a million years  
a better form of human  
being will come, happier  
and more intelligent. A few already  
have infiltrated this world and lived  
to very much regret it,  
I suppose.  
Me,  
I'd prefer to have come  
in the form of that hawk, floating over  
the mirroring fire  
of Clearlake's  
hill, my gold  
skull filled with nothing  
but God's will  
the whole day through, instead  
of these glinting voices incessantly  
unerringly guiding me  
to pursue  
what makes me sick, and not to  
what makes me glad. And yet  
I am changing: this three-pound lump  
of sentient meat electrified  
by hope and terror has learned to hear  
His silence like the sun,  
and sought to change!  
And friends  
on earth at the same time  
as me, listen: from the sound of those crickets  
last night, Rene Char said  
prenatal life  
must have been sweet -  
each voice perhaps also a star  
in that night  
from which  
this time  
we won't be  
interrupted anymore - but  
fellow monsters while we are still here, for one minute, think  
about this: there is someone right now who is looking  
to you, not Him, for whatever  
love still exists.


	13. Lulen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AYYY! BONUS CHAPTER! Also time to introduce one of my favorite characters who we haven't met yet :D  
CW: Insomnia, PTSD, and fantasy racism.

_ March 13, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa _

Before the winter sun rose over the palace known as Langmuir’s Landing, Lulen Langmuir was already awake. He hadn’t slept for over a day, preferring to sit vigilant at the desk in his grandfather’s study. Occasionally, when drowsiness began to close in, he would rise from his seat and walk around his family’s palace, checking the many, many, many abjuration charms he had cast around the castle every day for nineteen years. He knew that the spells would hold, and that he would be alerted automatically if they were disturbed, but he couldn’t help himself. When he did sleep, he would often wake up in a cold sweat, the burn scars that marked his arms, torso, neck, and upper leg prickling. Sometimes he thought he could hear footsteps behind him, smell a fire burning nearby, or glimpse two serpentine eyes glowing in the darkness. Recently, the dreams seemed to be seeping more and more into reality. He hadn’t told anyone for fear of causing a fuss. It was a wonder that his grandfather, who was known as Iangolor Langmuir to those outside of the family, had never caught him wandering the halls at night. Would the old man truly disbelieve him if he were to lie as to why he was so keen to avoid his own bed? Probably not. But the thought of so willfully deceiving his grandfather, a gentle, loving elf who had never been anything but kind to his wingless bastard of a grandchild, made Lulen’s stomach crawl. 

Taking note of the increasing heaviness of his eyelids, Lulen rose from the desk once again, grabbing the quarterstaff he used to cast spells. The large, winged, blue-black fox that had been lying at his feet stirred, and glanced up at the young mage with large, dark red eyes before emerging from under the desk.

Lulen quickly scanned the area beneath the desk with his elven darkvision, trying to make sure that the fox, who’s name was Halazio, hadn’t left any feathers behind.

He’d always enjoyed spending time in Iangolor’s study. The elven elder had forfeited the use of the room to his children and grandchildren as the centuries had gone by. Lulen himself had vivid memories of walking into the study as a child to find his aunt, Ravalee, seated on the floor of the room with a quill and parchment in hand composing the poetry for which she was famous. 

_ “Lu! Come here. You don’t need to hide behind the door like that.” _

Ravalee had been a tall, regal looking woman. Her skin was dark, and her feathers were a deep, iridescent blue, clearly marking her as a member of the Langmuir family. Her laugh was loud, clear, and euphonic. 

This, along with other memories, pushed themselves to the surface of Lulen’s mind as he walked through the doors of the study into the hall. He traced his fingers along the mosaic-covered walls of the corridor to steady himself, and to further anchor himself against the currents of sleep. Halazio, who seemed to sense the exhaustion of his master, leaned against the young mage’s shoulder, almost as though he hoped to serve as a cushion for the half-elf if he were to suddenly faint from exhaustion. However, Lulen remained awake, bracing himself against the wall of the corridor each time he felt sleep begin to claim him.

The ornate, stone encrusted panels soon gave way to pillars. The sky above the courtyard of Langmuir’s Landing was shifting, growing lighter as the sun climbed towards the horizon. Eager both to see the sunrise, and to keep himself awake, Lulen began to make his way up the stairs that wound around the minaret that towered over the palace. The minaret had been built by Lulen’s great-grandfather, Leokian Langmuir, to commemorate the Elven conquest of Atoa and the founding of the Republic that followed. However, the stairs that wound around the outside of the structure had been built while Lulen was still learning to walk. The climb to the platform at the top of the tower was arduous, and Lulen’s back was soon covered in sweat. Halazio, who hated using stairs even at the best of times, flew in a wide circle around the structure, slowly making his own ascent.

Lulen realized halfway up the stairs that he could see Halazio flying slowly around the minaret, not in the fuzzy red of the mage’s elven darkvision, but in color. The half-elf gritted his teeth and increased the speed of the climb. 

Within what felt like minutes, Lulen was at the top of the tower. The linen of his tunic was plastered to his back, and his calves burned. Unable to help himself, he sat down, leaning against one of the columns that supported the dome of the tower, and laying his quarterstaff down on his lap. Halazio soon alighted back onto the platform, and eagerly nuzzled up against his master, gently licking the half-elf’s hand.

Lulen gently scratched behind the animal’s ears and looked out over the bay. He could see the edge of the sun peaking over the ocean, illuminating the caps of foam that dotted the waves, and bathing the blue, indigo, and turquoise roofs of the city of Lunapoli in golden light. The half-elf sighed in relief. He’d made it through his fourth night without sleep. Suddenly, he noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye. An exhausted looking messenger, dressed in a grey military uniform, was flying in from the west. His face was pink, and his eyes were red from lack of sleep. Lulen waited for him to alight on the landing platform that overlooked the temple, where letters were usually distributed, but the courier flew past it, heading straight for the top of the minaret. Lulen jumped to his feet, grabbing his staff. Halazio let out a low growl at the courier, who didn’t seem to notice either of them. Tightening his grip on his staff, Lulen deliberately stepped off the edge of the tower. Halazio followed him, gently gliding down to the ground. 

The Courier screamed in horror as the wingless half-elf plummeted to the ground. Lulen held on to his staff with both of his hands. He was now 75 feet away from the ground, now 60, now—

“_ Featherfall _,” he murmured. The speed of his descent decreased immediately. Lulen landed lightly on his feet, and glanced back up at the Courier, who was flying towards the ground at breakneck speed. 

“What the fuck was that?! you wingless little—” The courier’s face was almost purple with rage. “Are you mad?! 

Halazio suddenly landed on the ground with a growl at the Courier, who stared at the beast in horror.

Lulen resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Don’t they teach cadets to land without plowing into bystanders?”

The courier was about to respond, when he suddenly seemed to take note of Lulen’s feathered brows and ears. His expression immediately changed. 

“You—You’re the half-elf—”

“Yes. Are you here to see my grandfather?” Lulen retorted, feeling a little impatient. Halazio continued to growl.

The Courier shot a bitter glare at the beast. “Yes. Where is he? I’m supposed to give this to him directly.”

“Lulen?” 

A soft voice echoed from across the courtyard. Iangolor Langmuir stood near the last of the columns, his blue, iridescent feathers shimmering in the morning sun. The old elf raised his hand in deference.

“Hail, Courier!”

The Courier gave a tense smile and pressed his fist to his chest. 

“Hail! Citizen Langmuir. I come bearing tidings written by the hand of Citizen Brother Oloro of Kráspedo, addressed to you.”

“Did you fly here nonstop from Lernayin Province?” Iangolor asked, looking somewhat concerned.

The Courier glanced warily at Halazio. “Aye. He told me they were tidings of the utmost importance.” 

Lulen tried his best not to look bemused. Apparently, his efforts fell far short of what was needed, because the Courier shot him another glare. 

“Have you any other messages to deliver? Or would you like some breakfast?” Iangolor asked, ignoring the Courier’s glowering eyes. 

The Courier’s features softened slightly. “I—I was going to get food at the temple—”

“Nonsense! Lulen, have you seen Hari and Dido?” 

Lulen shook his head. 

“Ah, well I can probably prepare something—”

“Grandfather, no,” Lulen interrupted. “They’re probably in the kitchen. You can go to the dining room and read your letter. I’ll find her.” 

Iangolor smiled, warmly squeezing his grandson’s shoulder. “Thank you, Lulen. Courier! Might I ask your name?”

The Courier stood at attention. “Erinio, sir.” 

“Ah! Isn’t your mother one of General Keldan’s daughters?” Iangolor replied as he ushered the stranger into the corridor. Lulen never got to hear the courier’s answer, as it was lost in the echoes of the corridor.

Feeling somewhat satisfied at the success of the spell he had used to break his fall, Lulen exited the courtyard with Halazio, making his way towards the kitchens. Briefly, as he walked quickly down the corridor, he realized that there had been a notable inconsistency in the Courier’s story. Although the young messenger had flown into the city from the west, the letter for Lulen’s grandfather had come from Kráspedo, which lay to the north. Pausing, and wondering if the fact that he hadn’t slept in more than two nights was impacting his reasoning, Lulen pushed the thought out of his mind as he entered the kitchen. 

Hari, a young Mochvár laborer who helped maintain the palace, was sitting at the kitchen counter, fiddling with a piece of string. He glanced up at Lulen with large, anxious brown eyes as the half-elf entered the room. Halazio paid no attention, and curled up under the kitchen table to take a nap.

“Morning Hari,” Lulen said. “Have you seen Dido and Zula?”

“I’m right here Lu!” Hari’s younger sister, Zula, quickly poked her head up from behind the scullery door. “Dido’s with the chickens. Is Iangolor—” Before she could finish, Zula squealed in delight, as Halazio emerged from under the table and sauntered over to land a large, wet kiss on the side of the scullery maid’s face. Once she had gotten over the shock of the beast’s over-enthusiastic greeting, Zula pressed her nose against that of the creature’s, and shooed him back under the table. 

Lulen gently stroked Halazio’s head as he curled back up under the table. “Yea. A courier came in with a letter just now. He’s staying for breakfast.”

Hari’s expression immediately brightened. “W-was he coming from Tyrfipoli?” He asked eagerly.

Lulen smiled a little bit sadly. “I’m sorry Hari. He said he came here from Kráspedo.”

The young Mochvár’s face fell into a look of despair. 

Lulen immediately felt a pang of concern in his chest. “Hari, is everything alright?” 

Hari’s lower lip quivered, and he promptly burst into tears. 

“I-I’m s-s-so sorry—” he stammered in between sobs. Zula quickly ran out of the scullery, her hands covered in suds, and sat down next to Hari at the kitchen counter, throwing her arms around her brother’s neck. 

Lulen sighed and sat down on the other side of the kitchen counter. The Mochvara were green-skinned, thickly built nomads with floppy ears and prominent lower tusks jutting out from their lower lip. They dwelled in the swampy province of Telma, and while they had never been famous for their emotional restraint, an ardent display of despair such as this was hardly a normal occurrence. Lulen had known Hari for almost a quarter of a century, since the young laborer was brought to the city as a baby, after being abandoned by his mother at the famous Corcra shrine, a travelling relic guarded by members of the Order of the Bog Mother. The clerics travelling with the shrine had handed Hari off to members of the more sedentary Order of the Goblet, and he’d arrived with about a dozen other Mochvar foundlings in Lunapoli when Lulen was 10. Zula, another Mochvar foundling, had been brought to Lunapoli nine years later. The two siblings were now twenty-five and fourteen.

“Hari, it’s alright—”

A loud, keening voice suddenly rang out from the pantry. “Oh by the fruit of Mitéra’s womb, Hari! is that you?!”

Dido, an amiable human woman who had worked at Langmuir’s Landing since before Lulen was born, suddenly entered through the kitchen door with a basket full of eggs.

“Oh! Morning Lu,” she murmured, bowing slightly. “Did he do something?” she asked, glaring at Hari suspiciously. 

“No, he’s fine. Hari, do you want some water?”

Hari shook his head before wiping his nose on the sleeve of his tunic. 

“S-she hasn't w-written all y-year,” Hari stammered. “D-d’you t-t-think she’s m-mad at me?” 

Lulen glanced over at Zula, who looked sheepishly at the floor. The reason for Hari’s anguish had suddenly become transparently clear. Two years before, a group of Mochvar foundlings, raised from infancy at Lunapoli’s temple, had taken the journey back to Telma province to join the Order of the Bog-mother. The group had included Hari, and Zula, along with their older sister, Beyu. However, Hari had been forced to return to Lunapoli prematurely, having been injured in a fight with an owl-bear. Zula had opted to return with him. The three “siblings” had remained in contact, with Beyu writing letters to Lunapoli whenever the shrine of Corcra passed through a town. However, the letters had begun to grow less frequent in recent months, much to the dismay of Hari and Zula.

“I’m sure they’re just busy,” Dido reassured the two foundlings. “Don’t you remember the monks at the temple talking about how cold it’s been this winter? It must be absolutely nightmarish, carrying that awful shrine through the bog at this time of year.” Dido suddenly paused and glanced up at Lulen. “Is your grandfather ready for breakfast?”

“Yea. A courier just brought us a letter from Kráspedo, I think he might be eating something as well.”

Zula suddenly glanced up at Lulen suspiciously. “Have you been staying up again?”

Lulen felt his face grow warm. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

A loud snore suddenly echoed from underneath the counter. Halazio, who rarely slept during the day, was curled up at Hari’s feet, sleeping soundly. 

“Oh for the sake of the All-Mother, Lu!” Dido exclaimed with a laugh. “What’s been keeping you and that fox up? Are you ill?” 

Lulen’s color deepened. “I’m fine,” he muttered, turning his attention back to Hari, who had finally stopped crying. “Hari, look, I’m sure that Beyu isn’t angry with you. I know you two haven’t always gotten along, but I’m pretty sure that she would tell you if she was angry about something.”

Hari glanced back up at Lulen with large, shining brown eyes. “Y-you think so?” He asked.

Lulen nodded. “I’m certain.”

Hari let out a small hiccup and nodded. His eyes suddenly drifted towards the basket of eggs, and his stomach growled. Zula followed his gaze longingly, and sheepishly stuffed her hands into her pockets.

Dido immediately stood at attention, and shot a piercing glare at the two Mochvara. “Hari DiMitéra, if you so much as touch one of those eggs, I swear—”

Hari’s face turned a deeper shade of green. 

“That’s right. Sit on your hands if you have to.” Dido muttered, wiping her hands off before running to the pantry.

Lulen waited until she was gone before taking two of the eggs from the basket.

“Pst, Hari!” he whispered, tapping the young laborer on the shoulder. 

Hari looked up in confusion. His eyes widened as soon as he saw the brown, speckled egg in Lulen’s hand. 

Zula, unable to squeal in delight, silently jumped up and down before throwing her arms around Lulen’s waist.

“Don’t worry. We’ve got plenty of eggs. I’ll take the heat if Dido notices.”

Hari nodded, took the egg, and popped it into his mouth with a crunch. Zula likewise released Lulen from her grip before doing the same with the egg she’d been given.

Lulen winced slightly. The knowledge that most Mochvar could ingest a ball of steel if they wanted to, did absolutely nothing to make Hari and Zula’s eating habits any less unsettling.

_ Well, at least they’re happy _, Lulen thought to himself, rising from his seat at the counter. 

“Dido?! I’m going upstairs to see what grandfather’s up to. Are you alright?”

“Aye! Go ahead!” Dido replied, coming out of the pantry with an arm full of dried herbs. “Zula, go finish up in that scullery, and Hari, can you get the fire going for me?” 

Zula gave Lulen a final hug before half-walking half-skipping back to the scullery. Hari wiped the last of the egg yolk from his mouth before heading towards the huge fireplace that had been built on the opposite side of the kitchen. 

Lulen grabbed his staff, and quickly ran up the kitchen stairs to the dining room.

When he reached the chamber where members of the Langmuir family usually ate meals, he was surprised to find his grandfather alone, standing by the window, staring off into the distance. 

“Um, Grandfather?” Lulen asked. 

Iangolor gave a start. “Goodness, Lulen, I didn’t see you.”

Lulen raised an eyebrow. There was something very strange in his grandfather’s countenance. The old elf’s eyes were glassy and unfocused, and his face was pale. 

“Where’s the courier?” Lulen asked.

“Ah, he claimed he had business to attend to. I tried to get him to stay, but he claimed that he would get in trouble with his superior if we kept him any longer.” 

Lulen immediately noticed the letter in his grandfather’s shaking hands. A terrible thought suddenly occurred to him.

“Has Brother Oloro—”

“Oh, heavens, no. I mean—I assume not yet. I could be wrong—” Iangolor’s voice suddenly broke. 

“Do you need me to get a healer?” the half-elf asked, warily.

Iangolor shook his head. “There is something I must speak to you about, immediately.”

Lulen suddenly remembered Dido, who was still making breakfast for five in the kitchen. “I should probably tell Dido that we won’t have company—”

“Lulen,” Iangolor suddenly interrupted. His voice was calm, but firm, and strangely urgent. “Please. Humor me.”

Lulen stared at his grandfather in confusion, “What’s happened?” he asked, trying hard not to sound nervous.

Iangolor glanced back down at the letter. 

“Your cousin lives.”

Lulen opened his mouth to speak, but his throat had suddenly gone completely dry. He was beginning to wonder if he’d failed to stay awake and was having this horrible, confusing dream as a result, when he felt his grandfather gently squeezing his shoulder, pulling him back to earth.

“Lulen..._ Ravalee’s child _—” The expression of hope mixed with relief on Iangolor’s face made Lulen’s heart jump into his throat. This was no dream. This was reality. His cousin, the child who had been spirited away to live underground almost twenty years before, was alive. 

“Wh—who found her?” Lulen heard himself stammer.

“A farmer and his daughter found her, the day after the village of Kráspedo was raided by Ophionite forces for sacrifices,” Iangolor paused. “It seems she was incapacitated. She is not well—”

“She’s an Ophionite. Travelling above ground. In Lernayin Province. In Winter_ . _ Of course she isn’t well—” Lulen retorted, speaking far more sharply than he’d meant to. 

Iangolor looked back up at his grandson with an expression of confusion that made Lulen want to sink into the floor. There was an awkward pause. 

“She needs to be brought home. Oloro says that her injuries are treatable, and that once she is strong enough, he will try to convince her to go south.”

Lulen’s burns prickled. “Is he with her?” He asked, struggling to keep his emotions out of his voice.

“Oloro—?”

“No. I meant _ him. _ Thoru Silvertongue.” 

Iangolor glanced back down at the letter. “He is not travelling with her at present, but I do not doubt that he and the Ophionites will try to follow her.” 

Lulen ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Did the letter say anything else?” 

“She is travelling with a companion,” Iangolor replied.

“It it another Ophionite?” 

“No. A young Tabaxi wanderer. She is called Spark-In-The-Wilderness of the Wandering River Clan.” The old elf held the letter out to his grandson. 

Lulen warily accepted the parchment. “What do you want to do?” He asked.

Iangolor glanced down at the floor. “I cannot go north. I have not flown more than two miles in almost a century. You are young, and you are my heir. You must go in my place.” Iangolor paused to glance back up at Lulen. “I want you to put her under this family’s protection.” 

Lulen stared at his grandfather in shock. “Why—How do you know she’ll accept it?”

Iangolor raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think she would not?”

“She doesn’t remember any of us. She was only a baby when she was taken—”

“It does not matter. Those are my wishes.” the old elf interrupted. His voice had once again take on that note of gentle firmness that usually marked the end of arguments at Langmuir’s Landing. An awkward silence filled the dining room. 

Lulen sighed. “If those are your wishes, I’ll leave this afternoon. I just need to get supplies from town.” A thought suddenly occurred to Lulen, “May I take Halazio?”

“Of course.”

“Fine. I’ll start packing,” Lulen replied curtly, taking his staff and turning to exit the room. 

“Wait, Lulen—”

Lulen, trying hard not to look impatient, turned back to his grandfather. “What?”

“There is something I want you to take with you. It is in the chapel.”

Lulen’s grip on his staff tightened. “Can it wait?” he asked. Now that he knew what his grandfather required of him, the young mage knew it would only be a matter of time before he said something regrettable. As of right now, all he wanted to do was go to his room, ostensibly to get his coin purse, but also to blow off steam. 

Iangolor pressed his lips together and sighed. “Fine. It can wait. I expect you will want to prepare for your journey. Shall I ask Zula to bring up your breakfast?”

“Yes please. Thank you.” Lulen replied shortly, before exiting the dining hall.


	14. Aevalor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WHAT?! ANOTHER NEW CHARACTER?! Yes. I'm feeling generous.  
CW: murder mention, and state surveillance mention, also Lulen being a sassy lil bitch.

###  _March 13, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa_

Lulen’s face burned as he walked quickly down the corridor. His grip on his staff was so tight, that he was beginning to feel the painful tingling in his burns which usually commenced when he overstrained the weaker, more sensitive scar tissue. He threw open the doors to his room with a blast of air, cast from the palm of his hand, dropped his staff, and flopped onto his bed with his hands on his temples. The nightmares that the half elf had spent the past week staying awake to avoid seemed much less frightening now. Suddenly, there was a soft knock on the door. 

“Lu? What are you doing?”

Zula was standing in the doorway with a breakfast tray. Halazio, who rose up at least a foot above the scullery maid’s shoulder, walked alongside her, his eyes fixed on the breakfast tray. Lulen immediately sat up in bed. 

“Oh! Nothing.”

Zula set her teeth and walked over to Lulen’s bed to set the platter down. Halazio followed, and promptly hopped onto Lulen’s bed, curled up, and closed his eyes. 

“Did you talk to Citizen Iangolor?” Zula asked earnestly.

Lulen nodded. “Did he tell you about the letter?”

“Yea. He told Dido and Hari. They’re both crying in the kitchen right now,” Zula murmured with a slight note of disapproval in her voice. 

Lulen smiled. Zula hadn’t been brought to Lunapoli until after Ravalee’s disappearance. Everything that had happened in the decade before, the arrival of the Ophionite known as Thoru Silvertongue, the farcical “diplomatic talks” at Langmuir’s Landing, the conception of Ravalee’s child, and all the horrors that followed were merely stories to her. Ophionites were bogeymen, who were mostly used to frighten disobedient children. Everything she knew about Ravalee had been told to her second hand by Beyu, Hari, Dido, Lulen, Iangolor and the clerics at the temple. The tears of horror, anger, and grief didn’t flow as easily for her as they did for those who had witnessed the whole ordeal. 

“Did they say anything?” Lulen asked. 

“Hari was wondering if you were going to stop in Tyrfipoli. I told him that you weren’t, because you were headed north. He’s still worried about Beyu.”

Lulen raised an eyebrow. “And you aren’t?”

Zula pressed her lips together and scratched Halazio behind the ears. The fox let out a sigh of satisfaction. “I try not to be. If I thought about it every day, I’d never get any work done.” She paused. “The All-Mother was sad when the creator left, and she didn’t stop working. The bearers of the Seven Swords were sad sometimes too, but they still needed to carry their weapons and use them to defeat the False Serpent.”

Lulen ran his fingers through his hair thoughtfully. He himself had never been an especially religious person, and his disdain for the Mitéra’s more extreme devotees had only grown since his aunt’s disappearance. However, he couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t at least a little impressed at Zula’s ability to recall the scripture that formed the basis of the Cult.

“You would have made a good cleric,” he said. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you and Hari.” 

Zula shrugged. “It’s alright. You didn’t ask that owl-bear to attack him.” She suddenly glanced back up at Lulen. “By the way, are you going to the market to get supplies?”

Lulen nodded. “Yea. You can come if you’d like.”

“I wish I could come with you to find Ravalee’s baby.” Zula murmured sullenly. 

“No you don’t. It’s not going to be fun. It’ll be quite cold, there won’t be a lot of food, and there’ll be Ophionites everywhere.”

Zula gave a skeptical grin. “I’ve been cold and hungry before, and I’m not scared of Ophionites.”

“You should be,” Lulen replied somberly. 

Zula flopped back onto the bed with a sigh. “It’s not fair. I don’t get to do anything fun. I’m so bored!” 

Lulen smiled. “I think you’ve had more than enough adventure for a fifteen year old. You’re still young, you know. If you were an elf, you’d have barely started teething yet.” 

“But I’m not an elf.” Zula retorted, “Elves have _ time. _”

Lulen sighed and grabbed his coin purse from his bedside table. He didn’t really want to have a conversation about mortality this early in the morning. Of all the races that inhabited the continent of Atoa, elves lived by far the longest. The average life expectancy for Mochvara citizens, even with the access to better nutrition, infrastructure, and healthcare that the Republic provided, was around forty-five years. As a half-elf, Lulen was still barely past the threshold of manhood at thirty-six, but even he wasn’t immune to that terrible mixture of awe and existential dread that came from contemplating the lifespan of the continent’s fully elven rulers.

“Don’t be morbid. Come on. let’s head out.” He said, grabbing his staff and a piece of toast from the plate Zula had brought in.

Zula glanced at Halazio, who was now sleeping soundly on the bed. “D’you think he’ll be very upset if he wakes up and we’re not here?”

The young half-elf bit the inside of his cheek. He couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty, now that the effect of four sleepless nights on the fox were becoming more apparent. “Yea, we should leave him. He’ll be fine.”

Zula nodded gravely and rose from the bed, taking Lulen’s arm as he walked out the bedroom door. Within a few minutes, the two travellers had made their way down to the courtyard, and began their journey into the city of Lunapoli, the mild winter breeze carrying the smell of the sea inland.

* * *

The Marketplace located in the shadow of Lunapoli’s temple was a loud, disorienting maze of tents and kiosks. Child pickpockets wove in and out of the crowd armed with small knives and nimble fingers. Zula, who was short enough to go unnoticed by most passers by, kept an eye out for any ankle-biter foolish enough to reach for Lulen’s coin purse. At one point, a petit Dealurian youngster emerged from the crowd and cautiously crept up behind the two travellers. Zula spotted the child immediately, and firmly grabbed him by the ear. The child yelped in anger, prompting the crowd to scatter, and Lulen to whip around.

“Zula! Let him go, it’s alright.” Lulen said, once he’d determined that his coin purse still hung from his belt.

Zula released the young thief, who scampered back into the crowd. From that point forward, Lulen kept his coin purse clutched in his hand. 

While he was haggling with a particularly tight fisted vendor over a tinderbox, Zula occupied herself by looking at an enchanted silk rope that purportedly obeyed any command given by the user. Even after being told that the rope would cost ten platinum pieces, a hefty sum even for a supposedly enchanted item, Zula continued to gaze longingly at the artifact. 

Suddenly a clear, breezy voice rang out from the crowd. “Hail, Citizen! how much is that rope?” 

Lulen immediately felt his heart jump into his throat. He turned away from the shopkeeper warily, wondering if the voice truly belonged to the person he thought it did. As he turned to face the speaker, he caught a glimpse of Zula’s face shift from an expression of despair to one of utter glee. 

“AEVALOR!” the young scullery maid squealed, launching herself towards the speaker. 

The owner of the voice was Aevalor Gendry of Caelipoli, the son of High Proxenos of the Republic and Langmuir family friend, Luhorn Gendry. Aevalor was a tall, broad shouldered Caelian Elf with violet-blue hair and wings, grey eyes, and a winning smile. He was dressed in the uniform of a soldier in the Republic’s Army. The soldier and mage had learned to speak the Ophionite dialect under the same tutor during the summers, when Aevalor wasn’t studying as a cadet at the Republic’s military academy, and although the two had grown unusually close they had parted six years before and agreed to never cross paths again. 

Zula, who had known Aevalor for most of her childhood, and knew nothing of what had passed between him and the son of her employer, caught the young soldier around his waist, and squealed in delight. 

Aevalor smiled fondly and returned the scullery maid’s embrace. “Hey! I thought you were in Telma!” he laughed. “What are you doing at the market this early in the morning?” 

“I’m here with Lulen. He’s going on an adventure.” Zula replied, releasing Aevalor from the vice grip around his waist. “When did you get here?”

“I flew in last night. I’m just here on government business.”

Zula’s face fell into a look of disappointment. “Why didn’t you tell us you were here? You could’ve come over for breakfast this morning. We had extra food.”

Aevalor glanced at Lulen. His eyes were filled with mirth. “Oh, because of that courier?”

Lulen instinctively tightened his grip on his staff. He was about to speak, but Zula interrupted him before he could get a word out.

“Yes! He said he needed to leave or he’d get in trouble with his superior.”

“Ah, that’s my fault I suppose. I’m his superior.” 

Lulen felt his heart fall into his stomach. Something had suddenly clicked. Under other circumstances, this reunion would have merely been awkward, but it slowly seemed to be morphing into something more sinister.

Zula’s eyes widened in amazement. “Are you still a private—”

“Sergeant,” Aevalor corrected, briefly glancing at the enchanted rope that the scullery maid had been looking at. “Are you looking to buy that?”

Zula chuckled sheepishly. “No. I was just looking at it.” 

Aevalor raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Did you want to buy it?”

“It’s ten platinum pieces,” Zula replied sadly.

Aevalor’s smile widened. He reached into the component pouch that hung from his belt and pulled out a small handful of platinum coins.

“Here, be sure to talk to the vendor about how to use it properly,” Aevalor murmured.

Zula’s eyes lit up as she counted the coins out in her hand. “I only needed ten pieces—t-this is too much—”

Aevalor clasped her by the shoulder. “Hey, it’s alright. Go have fun. We’ll meet you on the beach a little after noon.”

Zula squealed and threw her arms back around Aevalor’s, thanking him in a mixture of common and Mochvar, before running back to the stall to procure the rope. 

Aevalor cheerfully approached his old classmate. 

“Hello Lu. Good to see—”

“What are you doing here?” Lulen snapped. The half-elf could feel the heat of anger rising up into his face. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t throw you into the bay.”

Aevalor’s face fell. “Is this about Zula? She’ll be fine—”

“Cut the crap,” Lulen retorted. 

Aevalor’s expression finally grew more serious. The time for jesting had clearly passed. “Hey, I’m staying over in the Wellspring tavern, if you’d just—” 

“Will that ‘courier’ be there?” Lulen sneered.

“He should be halfway to Caelipoli by now.” Aevalor replied soberly. “Please? I’m sorry for my entrance earlier, I swear, I didn’t plan it like that. I’m also sorry for not sending a letter ahead to tell you I was coming, but there wasn’t time.” He paused. “I promise I’ll answer every question you have if you come with me.”

Lulen had half a mind to spit in his old friend’s face, find Zula, and make his way back to Langmuir’s Landing, but the sincerity of Aevalor’s tone gave him pause. 

“Fine, but make it quick. I need to buy supplies.” the young mage muttered, curtly.

Aevalor breathed a sigh of relief. “I can help you with that. Don’t worry.” 

* * *

The Wellspring Tavern was a small, whitewashed building with a blue roof that stood a few blocks away from the market. The interior was somewhat dark, and nearly deserted. Aevalor sat down on one of the more worn out looking bar stools and quietly gestured to the stool on his right. Lulen sat down very, very reluctantly.

“So—before I start—Are there any specific questions you have about why I’m here?”

“I have a theory,” Lulen replied, sarcastically. “You know, it’s strange, I don’t remember learning about the clause in the constitution that gives the Proxenos the right to read the letters of private, law abiding citizens.”

Aevalor turned pink. “Father didn’t ask for the letter to be intercepted. The postmaster at Fort Fensalor suspected that something was wrong and sent the letter on to Caelipoli.”

Lulen gave a bitter smile. “I didn’t realize the Senate had imbued the position with such authority—”

“Only in matters pertaining to the security of the Republic,” Aevalor interrupted. “The program started after your aunt’s disappearance. It’s just a safety measure. If people have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear.”

“So you know what was in the letter?” Lulen responded cooly.

“I didn’t read it. Senator Kelpetor did, and Father briefed me on it.”

Lulen wrinkled his nose in disgust. “So what orders were you given?”

The young mage’s golden eyes, filled with disdain, disbelief and disappointment, sent a pang through Aevalor’s chest. Nevertheless, the young soldier swallowed the lump in his throat and continued. 

“The Constitution states that all law abiding citizens of the republic are entitled to the presumption of innocence. However, those who pose a possible threat to the safety of the republic or her citizens are ineligible for such a privilege. In cases involving such persons, defenders of the republic are authorized to strike preemptively against those who might wish us harm.”

Lulen raised an eyebrow. He immediately deduced who this possible threat to the safety of the Republic might be. “So why aren’t you headed north to find the Child of Scales and Feathers? Why are you telling me all this?”

Aevalor sighed. “Because before the Autumn Rebellion our ancestors vowed that our two houses would exist as one, and that no member of one would ever draw blood from the other.”

Lulen felt his anger quickly being eclipsed by confusion. “I—But Thoru’s child isn’t protected by the oath. She’s not technically a family member—”

“Exactly. And if I’m to succeed in my mission, that needs to stay that way.” Aevalor glanced down at the counter of the bar nervously. “I didn’t want to do this behind your back. Father didn’t want me to either. For one thing, we were worried that you might find her before we did. For another thing...well...father said that if you were to help us, Iangolor might be able to see that this is for the best.”

Lulen bit his lip. “What makes you think that I’d help?”

“Because you know what the Ophionites are capable of, and because you’re smart enough to know that no amount of forgiveness and good faith will change what they did to you and your family.” Aevalor paused to drum his fingers on the counter. “Also, if you help me with this, I can help you do what you promised to do to Thoru Silvertongue 19 years ago.”

Lulen glanced back up at his old friend. Aevalor had just given voice to all the thoughts that had been racing through the Half-elf’s head since the arrival of Oloro’s letter. Nevertheless, the thought of his grandfather’s disappointment at such disobedience made the young mage uneasy.

“What makes you think that he’ll forgive me?” He asked. 

Aevalor ran his fingers through his hair. “Honestly, if he’s willing to let the child of a monster into his house, while casting out his only heir, then Iangolor Langmuir isn’t half the elf I thought he was.” 

Lulen’s heart hardened. Aevalor was right. This would be for the best. “Fine,” he answered.

Aevalor’s face lit up. “Excellent.”

The young mage tightened his grip on his staff. The last dregs of filial piety and guilt that remained within his soul had but one statement to make before being thrust into the darkness. “On one condition. He’ll only accept my doing this if she’s truly irredeemable. If I find any reason at all to have you spare her, I need you to promise that you’ll back down.” 

Aevalor couldn’t help but smile slightly at the condition presented by the half-elf. “Shall I also back down if the sky begins falling?”

“It’ll make telling him easier once it’s over.” Lulen said, pointedly. 

Aevalor shrugged. “Fair enough. He’s your grandfather. And she’s your—well—hopefully nothing.”

Lulen set his teeth. “Hopefully. Yes.”


	15. Parting Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lulen gets ready to leave Lunapoli.

_ March 13, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa _

Lulen and Aevalor left the tavern immediately after they’d finished their conversation, and returned to the market. Shopping for supplies together turned out to be a blessing. Lulen was the better haggler of the two friends, but Aevalor knew exactly what to buy. Soon, the young mage’s new backpack was full of camping supplies. It was high noon when the two former classmates made it to the beach. Zula hadn’t arrived yet, and the tide had just gone out. Aevalor and Lulen decided to wait in the temple, where they would be sheltered from the brisk winter wind.

The Nave of Lunapoli’s temple was a large room with high ceilings, a domed roof, low hanging lamps, and brightly coloured stained glass windows. Scrolling across the walls, framing lavish mosaics depicting scenes from before and after the Autumn Rebellion, were hymns written in praise of Mitéra, the All-Mother. Aevalor regarded the splendor of the sanctuary as little more than a curiosity, compelling, but inconsequential. Lulen, who had spent a large part of his childhood in the temple, going to services with his aunt, serving food to pilgrims in the spring and summer, studying scripture with the clerics of the temple (who were known as Adelphos), and helping to watch the orphans who were housed in the complex, was exceedingly uncomfortable. The house of worship had been nearly destroyed when Ophionite Agents had attacked the city almost two decades before, and while the sanctuary had been almost fully restored since then, the intensification of Lulen’s nightmares surrounding the event had made visiting the complex more painful in recent months.

Now that what he thought of as the most daunting part of his mission had been completed, Aevalor began to take note of his friend’s bedraggled appearance. Lulen had grown thinner, his eyes seemed more weary, and his skin and hair were dull. The lamps that hung low from the ceiling of the nave accentuated the hollowness of his cheeks and the dark circles under his eyes. His hair had not been combed, and there was a tenseness in every step he took that made Aevalor’s feathers stand on edge. 

“Say, are you alright?” 

Lulen immediately snapped to attention, and instinctively rubbed his eyes. “Yea, I’m fine.”

_ You’re a rotten liar, Lu _ , the elven warrior thought to himself. “Do you want to go outside to get some air?” 

The half-elf glanced sheepishly up at his old friend. “I—we don’t have to if you don’t want to—”

“I don’t mind,” Aevalor interrupted. “Come on, let’s sit on the beach.”

The two friends quickly left the temple through the back entrance, and situated themselves on the stairs, which looked out over the beach. Grey clouds hung low above the sea, the darkness of which was sporadically interrupted by white caps. Fishing boats manned by Mochvar, Human and Dealurian sailors were being brought in for lunch. Aevalor, noting the brisk chill in the air, removed his cloak and draped it around the young mage’s shoulders. Lulen glanced up at his friend in confusion. 

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s fine. I’ve spent the last six years in Caelipoli. It’s not nearly as warm there as it is here.” 

Lulen raised an eyebrow. “The last time you offered me a garment when I was cold, you walked back to the palace in the sun without a tunic, and woke up the next morning with a second degree sunburn.”

“Well, it’s overcast, so that won’t be a problem.”

The mage snorted. “That’s not how sunlight works.”

“It’s not like I’ll be taking off my tunic. I’m not  _ that _ chivalrous.” Aevalor shot his friend a rakish grin. “Unless you’d prefer that I be.”

Lulen’s color deepened, and yet he couldn’t help but smile. “Fuck off.”

The young warrior gave a bemused chuckle, and sat down on the temple steps. “Speaking of chivalry, how were you planning on getting north? I hope you don’t expect me to carry you all the way to Lernayin.” 

“I have a ride,” the wingless mage answered, pulling Aevalor’s cloak more tightly around his shoulders.

Aevalor smiled. “Do you? or are you saying that to make me jealous?”

“You wish,” Lulen retorted with a sarcastic smile. “Unless you’ve had such bad luck in Caelipoli that you’d actually feel threatened by a winged fox.”

Aevalor’s expression brightened immediately. “You’re taking Halazio?! How is he?”

“He’s fine.” Lulen replied, biting the inside of his cheek. “I haven’t ridden him much recently, so this’ll be an interesting experiment.” 

“How long has it been since you last put a saddle on him?”

The young mage’s color deepened. “About...four years.”

Aevalor raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Damn. What has he been up to for four years?”

Lulen pulled the borrowed cloak more tightly around his shoulders. He didn’t want to tell the elven warrior about the hours he’d spent clawing his way beyond the reach of slumber, or the effect that these antics had had on an innocent creature who had been nothing but a friend to him. Thankfully, before he could answer, he was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming from behind him. 

“Lu? Did you get your stuff?” Zula had suddenly emerged from within the temple nave. The enchanted rope was still clutched in her hand, but aside from that, she appeared to be empty handed. 

Aevalor stared at the young scullery maid in shock. “Didn’t you see anything else to buy?” 

Zula shook her head. “I put the platinum pieces in the temple collection tin. Donations are always slow in winter. They need the money more than I do.”

“You couldn’t find a frock or a dagger or something?” the elven warrior muttered in dismay. “Not even something to send to Telma?”

Zula’s expression sank like a stone. “I wouldn’t know where to send it. We haven’t heard from Beyu since last spring.”

Aevalor raised an eyebrow in concern. “That’s strange. D’you think she’s alright?”

Lulen shot his old friend a glare of admonition. “She’s probably fine. It’s winter. Transporting the shrine is always harder during this time of year.”

“But you said she hasn’t written since last spring—” Aevalor suddenly stopped himself, taking note of the intensity of Lulen’s gaze.

“Are you coming back to the castle with us?” Zula asked, ignoring Aevalor’s more injudicious remarks.

Aevalor quickly regathered himself and shook his head with a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Zula. I need to be out of the city before sunset.” He suddenly turned to Lulen with a wry grin. “I’ll be taking off from the bluffs just east of the castle at around four, but I need to take care of a few things first.”

The half-elf removed Aevalor’s cloak from around his shoulders, stoically handing it back to the elven warrior. Zula’s send-off was slightly more enthusiastic. She threw her arms around Aevalor’s waist, burying her face in his chest. 

“Please come back soon,” she murmured, her voice cracking slightly as she tried to suppress tears. “Hari’s going to be so sad he missed you.”

“I’ll try my best,” Aevalor replied warmly. “Give him a big hug from me, okay?”

Zula nodded, and pulled away from the elven warrior, wiping her eyes as she did so.

Aevalor turned back to Lulen with an apologetic smile. “Well, till we meet again, I suppose.” 

Lulen nodded curtly. “C’mon Zula, we need to head back.” 

Zula nodded, and picked up one of the lighter parcels before taking Lulen’s arm. The mage and scullery maid quickly took their leave, and made their back into the nave, leaving Aevalor on the beach. Zula glanced back at the elven warrior sporadically, before casting her gaze downward to hide her tears. 

Lulen turned to her in concern. “Are you alright?”

Zula nodded. “I’m worried—I mean—I’m just sad that everyone’s leaving. I wish I didn’t have to stay here and wait for you all to come back.”

Lulen protectively squeezed the young scullery maid’s shoulder, even as he felt a tight knot of anger form in his chest.  _ Feather-headed idiot,  _ the Half-elf thought to himself.  _ At least I was with Zula, and not Hari _ . He prudently decided to change the subject as the two exited the temple and re-entered the market. 

“Were you able to learn how the rope works?”

Zula’s expression brightened. “Yea. You just need to think of what you want to rope to do and say the command word.”

“And what’s the command word?”

Zula quietly glanced behind Lulen and grinned mischievously.  _ “Anaveino!” _

The rope suddenly animated, and spooled out of the scullery maid’s hand, wrapping itself limply around the shoulders of a young pickpocket, who was reaching for the purse of a nearby shopper. The aspiring thief let out a surprised yelp, drawing the attention of everyone in the market.

“Zula! Don’t do that, Get it off him!” Lulen exclaimed. 

Zula rolled her eyes and repeated the command. The rope uncoiled from around the thief’s shoulders, rolled itself back into the scullery maid’s hand. The thwarted swindler ran back into the crowd sobbing. Zula grinned triumphantly and tucked the rope back under her arm. 

The rest of the walk back down the road to Langmuir’s Landing was fairly uneventful. Lulen could feel his own exhaustion beginning to get the better of him again. Zula glanced up at the half-elf with a look of concern, as the symptoms of his fatigue became more apparent. 

“Lu, Why aren’t you sleeping properly?”

Lulen felt his heart drop into his stomach. 

“I’m alright. Just a bit under the weather.” Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. “Zula, I’m sorry, but you can’t tell anyone at the house that we saw Aevalor in the market today.”

Zula’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why?” 

Lulen opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t compromise his and Aevalor’s plan. 

“I—It’s just—not—”

“Why are you asking me to lie to your everyone for you?”

“I’m not asking you to lie—just—don’t mention it.” 

Zula’s features softened slightly, and she stared at the half elf with an unsettlingly earnest expression. 

Lulen felt a lump form in his chest. There was an undercurrent of disappointment, indignation, and betrayal in Zula’s gaze that made him feel as though he’d been kicked in the stomach. 

When Zula finally did begin speaking again, her voice had changed. She sounded much older, and much, much sadder. “I’ll keep your secrets, but I’m only doing it because I know how heartbroken your grandfather would be if he knew you’d been keeping things from him.” She paused. The dirt road had given way to limestone, and the archway that led to the courtyard loomed before them. Zula turned to the young half-elf with a look of somber anger on her face. 

“I have chores to do, and I need to check on Hari.”

Lulen nodded absently. “I need to pack.” 

The scullery maid grudgingly handed the parcel she’d been carrying to Lulen, and ran into the castle, her rope tucked under her arm. Before she disappeared through the doorway, she turned one last time to face the mage. “May Mitéra have mercy on you, Lulen Langmuir.”

Lulen cast his gaze downward, his face burning with embarrassment and anger. He managed to make it inside the palace and up the stairs to his room, where he dumped his parcels on the bed, and immediately buried his face in his pillow. Before he could dwell much further on his own wretchedness, he felt a large, wet, tongue on his ear. Lulen glanced up to see Halazio staring at him with large, black eyes. 

“Hey,” Lulen murmured, getting up and rubbing the fox behind the ears. “I’m sorry I left without you. Did you have a good nap?”

The fox let out a satisfied growl, burying his giant head in Lulen’s chest. The young mage bit the inside of his cheek. This was ridiculous. Zula was over two decades younger than he was. She hadn’t even been alive when the Ophionites attacked Lunapoli. The words Aevalor had spoken in the tavern echoed in his ears:  _ no amount of forgiveness and good faith will change what they did to you. _

“This is for the best,” Lulen murmured. “She’s too young to know what she’s talking about. Hopefully when she’s older, she’ll understand.” The half-elf decided to take his mind off of his conversation with the young scullery maid by packing. He quickly began organizing the parcels, and stuffing clothes into the rucksack he’d purchased at the market. He’d just removed Halazio’s saddle from under his bed when the winged fox let out a low whimper and began pawing at the door to the room. 

Lulen immediately rose from his seat on the bed. “Laz? What’s going on?” 

The fox let out a soft howl and continued pawing at the door. Lulen approached the entryway, and cautiously pushed the door open. Lying on the threshold was a parcel, wrapped in furs. A piece of parchment lay on top of it, sealed with wax. Lulen opened it, and immediately recognized the elegant, looping script as that of his grandfathers. He crumpled the letter into a ball. He felt as though he had a pretty good idea of the contents of Iangolor’s letter. It would begin with a greeting, and an apology for not seeing Lulen off properly, a tender word or two of love and goodwill, an expression of pride and joy in seeing what the heir to Langmuir’s Landing had become, a plea for forgiveness in the face of any shortcomings, perhaps even a prayer or hymn to the All-Mother for Lulen’s safety. The thought of reading even one word of such a document now, at this moment, made Lulen’s stomach crawl. In an attempt to regain his resolve, he quickly reminded himself of what Aevalor had said in the Wellspring Tavern. 

_ If he’s willing to let the child of a monster into his house, while casting out his only heir, then Iangolor Langmuir isn’t half the elf I thought he was. _

If Iangolor was unwilling to forgive his grandson for acting in the family’s interest, then his forgiveness had never been worth earning. Heartened by this thought, Lulen bent down to pick up the parcel, but found that it was too heavy to lift. He attempted to lift it by magic, but the parcel wouldn’t move. He tried to pull it across the floor, but after five minutes of effort, his back was covered in sweat, and the parcel had only moved an inch. Frustrated at the lack of progress he was making, and furious at the fact that the old elf had decided to give him such a burdensome gift, the young mage tore open the furs so that he might look upon the source of this torment. The furs fell away to reveal a flash of steel. 

Lulen recognized the sword immediately. He’d seen it depicted in illustrations, mosaics, poems, songs, prayers and hymns. He’d listened to myths and legends about the object throughout his childhood, and seen the actual thing in the temple during pilgrimage season. He could still bring to mind his aunt’s voice describing the sword in a hymn she’d written.

_ Beneath her swords and goblet, full _

_ Have oft my muscles weakened _

Lulen couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh. “‘ _ Have oft my muscles weakened’ indeed _ ,” he thought to himself.  _ “May the sea smite me.” _

Before he could even begin to wallow in the hopelessness of his situation, Halazio let out a growl.

“Oy! Laz, it’s okay, it’s just me!”

Lulen turned around in a panic only to see Aevalor stepping through his window. The elven warrior was immediately met by Halazio, who ran towards him with a wagging tail. Aevalor quickly planted a kiss on the creature's nose and immediately noticed that the beast had not been saddled. He glanced at his friend with a raised eyebrow. “Did you get through all your goodbyes then?”


	16. Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey finally begins.  
CW: Flirting...that's it.

** _March 13, Year 1520 of the Elven Republic of Atoa_ **

Lulen felt his cheeks burn. “Why aren’t you at the bluffs? It’s not even four yet!”

Aevalor shrugged and gently scratched the fox behind the ears. “I got bored. I heard the bells for afternoon prayers and decided to see how you were doing. Is Zula still here?”

Lulen’s stomach churned at the memory of his conversation with the young scullery maid. “I don’t think you seeing her would be a good idea right now.” 

Aevalor smiled in bemusement. “Am I that terrible of an influence?” 

“You’ve always been a terrible influence.”

“True, you never did seem to mind that, did you?” Aevalor replied with a wink. Now that he’d abandoned his post at the bluffs and successfully navigated the web of security spells that Lulen had woven around the palace, he decided that he might as well engage in some gentle, flirtatious ribbing. He gave the winged fox one more pet behind the ears before the animal ran back to his master’s bed to curl up.

Lulen’s color deepened. He was too frustrated with the situation to take Aevalor’s ribbing in stride. “Did you just come here to flirt with me like I’m some starry eyed cadet?”

Aevalor sensed the half-elf’s frustration immediately. “Your impression of my taste in lovers is completely inaccurate. But in answer to your question, I honestly just wanted to see if you needed help packing.” The elven warrior shot a quick glance at the sword. “And from what I’m seeing now, it seems that my worries were more well founded than I thought...is that one of the seven swords of sorrow?”

Lulen’s anger cooled slightly. “Yes. Grandfather left it outside of my door. I can’t lift it.”

Aevalor bit his lip, removed his messenger bag, and strode up to the weapon. “Stand back for a moment,” he murmured. He gripped the handle and lifted the sword off the furs with a grunt, his arm shaking with the effort. 

Lulen stared at his old friend in astonishment. “How—how are you doing that?”

Aevalor gave a bemused, and somewhat smug, grin. His muscles were already beginning to burn, and he could feel the rosebud shaped pommel leaving an imprint in his palm. That being said, he couldn’t help but feel a considerable amount of pride at his friend’s amazement. “I’m an elf of many talents.” He answered, before resting the sword on the ground to inspect it. “So I suppose the legends are true. It’s certainly heavy enough that I can’t fly with it.” 

“Why would it be heavy for you?” Lulen asked, a little concerned. He’d assumed, judging by Aevalor’s promotion, that things had been going well. However his worst fears quickly evaporated as the elven warrior flashed a wry smile.

“Well I may not be very sorrowful, but I am a _ terrible _ influence.” Aevalor glanced at the sword and smiled slightly. “Truly though, I think I’ve gotten somewhat better at dealing with my emotions now that I’ve hit my one-twenties.”

“Clearly,” Lulen muttered dryly. “I can tell by the steadiness of your grip.” Now that he knew that there was absolutely no reason to feel concerned for Aevalor’s well being, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat resentful.

Aevalor gave a loud chuckle. Normally he might have felt somewhat stung by such a comment, but the fact that it was coming from someone he’d known for as long as Lulen lessened the sharpness of the insult. “You’re one to talk. You can’t even lift the thing. There’s no need to act like you’re not impressed.”

“I’m not.” Lulen retorted, blushing furiously. 

Aevalor’s grin widened as he took note of the color rising in the half-elf’s cheeks. “Oh really? Then why haven’t you kissed me to make me shut up?” 

“Because I think breaking your jaw would be quicker and more prudent.” Lulen snapped. “What are we doing about the sword?”

Aevalor sighed and set the weapon down on the ground. The time for leisurely ribbing had clearly passed. It was time to think seriously about their mission. “I do have one idea.”

Lulen shot a bitter glare at the elven warrior. “If you make one more waggish comment I swear—”

“Oh come off it. Go put the saddle on Halazio. I’ll wrap this thing back up.” Aevalor interrupted. 

Lulen shot a quick glance at the fox, who was lying dutifully on the bed. “Why—?”

“How much d’you think a winged fox has to be sorrowful about?” the elven warrior asked impatiently as he began to wrap the sword. 

Lulen immediately felt a tight knot form in his chest as he remembered how the beast had kept vigil by his side for four nights, taking naps during the day and never growing frustrated with the child-like fear of his master. 

“Are you sure it won’t hurt him?”

Aevalor bit the inside of his cheek. “I have a gut feeling that it won’t. If it does, we just won’t take the thing. We can hide it under your bed. I doubt Iangolor will notice. Did you get the saddle?”

Lulen took a tense breath inward. “I’m getting it now.” 

Getting the saddle onto Halazio was fairly easy. The fox actually seemed quite excited at the prospect of being ridden again. He wagged his tail and nuzzled his face against Lulen’s arms. Lulen placed an apologetic kiss on the creature’s large, noble head. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry.” 

Aevalor stepped forward, holding the sword in his arms. He took the belt and cautiously wound it around the fox’s chest, then used one of the longer strips of fur to secure the other end of the sheathed weapon to the saddle. Even with the furs wrapped around it, the sword lay almost flat against the side of the saddle, and Halazio didn’t seem fazed by the burden at all. On the contrary, he rose to his feet, scratched himself, and continued to wag his tail. Lulen breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Laz,” he murmured, scratching the fox behind the ears. 

“Good old fox,” Aevalor added, beaming at the creature. “At least one of us doesn’t have anything to be sad about.” The warrior turned to his half elven friend. “Are you ready?”

Lulen picked up his pack and his staff. “Yes, I’m ready.”

“No you’re not. Where’s your cloak?”

The young mage cursed under his breath. It had been over twenty years since Lulen had worn the woolen garment that hung in his closet. The mantle had once belonged to a distant cousin. The gaps in the back that ordinarily might have accommodated a pair of wings had been haphazardly patched. 

“Why didn’t you purchase a new cloak?” Aevalor asked as the half elf wrapped the garment around his shoulders. 

“Because, unlike you, I actually have a budget. It was either a new cloak or that damn rucksack you said that I needed to buy.” Lulen retorted. 

“Eh, fair enough. D’you have a scarf?” 

“No,” the mage muttered. 

“Here.” The elven warrior quickly unwound the long indigo scarf from around his neck and handed it over. “Wrap it around the lower half of your face. It’ll keep the wind out when we’re flying.”

Lulen obeyed. “Like this?” 

“Yea. Okay, good, did you say goodbye to everyone?”

Lulen bit the inside of his cheek. He knew that Hari and Dido would be disappointed that he didn’t say goodbye, but the thought of facing either of them now that he knew what this mission entailed made him uneasy. 

“Yes. I said goodbye to them.” 

Aevalor could tell immediately that Lulen was lying, but the half-elf’s discomfort at the question was so palpable that Aevalor couldn’t find it in himself to argue. 

“Right then. Let’s head up to the roof.”

The three travellers, Lulen, Aevalor, and Halazio, made their way up the stairs to the roof of the palace. The sun was beginning to sink low over the horizon, bathing the palace in golden light. Even with the scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face, Lulen could still smell the salty breeze blowing in from the ocean. He immediately felt a tight knot of sadness form in his chest. 

“D’you still have those rings that your aunt gave you?” Aevalor asked. 

Lulen’s hands immediately flew to the medallion around his neck. Suspended next to the pendant on a pewter chain were a pair of silver rings. They were powerful talismans that allowed the wearer to hear the thoughts of whoever was wearing the other. “Yes. Why?”

“Because holding any kind of verbal conversation while flying is a nightmare, especially when one is higher up.”

Lulen glanced down at the chain around his neck. He hadn’t used the rings with anyone in six years. 

“But if you don’t want to, that’s fine.”

Lulen bit the inside of his cheek and removed the rings from the chain around his neck. He handed one to Aevalor, who took it nervously.

“I’m really serious. We can probably use hand signals—”

“Shut up and put the ring on,” Lulen interrupted, slipping his own ring on his finger. 

Aevalor nodded and obeyed. He slid the ring onto his finger.

_ “Can you hear me?” _ The half-elf’s voice echoed in Aevalor’s head. It was almost as if the young mage were leaning over his shoulder and whispering to him. Aevalor felt a tight knot of nostalgia form in his chest.

_ “Yes. Yes I can hear you. Damn, It’s weird doing this again, after all these years. Are you alright?” _

Lulen’s color deepened as he pressed his lips together. _ “I’m fine. We should take off.” _

Aevalor nodded and took his place at the edge of the roof. _ “Ready whenever you are.” _

Lulen quickly whispered a command to Halazio. The great winged fox knelt, and allowed the mage to climb into the saddle without too much trouble. He was promptly rewarded with a scratch behind the ears. 

Aevalor grinned broadly, and quickly put on the helmet that had been hanging at his side. _ “Okay, so we’ve got a southwesterly wind from Lernayin coming in at around 10-12 knots, pretty standard for this time of year. The weather’s gonna get a lot more intense as we get further north, so we’ll be taking breaks every few hours. If we keep flying through the night, and beat the blizzard that’s gonna hit the north in 24 hours, we should be in Lernayin by noon tomorrow. We’ll be flying against the wind, but it shouldn’t be too terrible.” _ Aevalor’s voice, or at least the voice that Lulen heard in his head by way of the ring, had suddenly changed. It retained the breezy reassurance with which the elven warrior usually spoke, while also maintaining a new more authoritative note. In addition, barely concealed behind the military jargon, was an undercurrent of giddy excitement. Aevalor, like most Caelian elves, loved flying. It was as natural for him to be in the sky as it was for a fish to be in the sea. Even Lulen, as sleep deprived and grouchy as he felt, couldn’t help but feel somewhat charmed by his friend’s enthusiasm.

_ “Okay, we take off in ten seconds. Ten, Nine, Eight…” _

Lulen nervously patted Halazio on the neck as the fox spread its wings. 

_ “...Five, Four, Three, Two, One—” _

Aevalor stepped off the roof, and Halazio, who seemed just as eager to get into the sky again, followed suit. 

The elf and the winged fox swooped downward in a dive, prompting Lulen to grab hold of Halazio’s fur in terror. Just as the three travellers seemed destined to crash into the limestone of the courtyard, they pulled out of their dives and propelled themselves upward, past the minaret of Langmuir’s Landing, and past the high cliffs that surrounded the palace. When the two flyers had finally settled into a consistent pace, Lulen opened his eyes. The city of Lunapoli, bathed in the warm light of the setting sun, spread out before him like a tapestry. The journey north had finally begun.


End file.
